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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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A HISTORY OF JAFFA 


By 
S. TOLKOWSKY 


‘** History compels us to fasten on abiding issues, and 
rescues us from the temporary and transient. Politics 
and history are interwoven, but are not commensurate.”’ 


f Lorp ACTON. 


*“ Many famous men have been buried under ground, 
Of whose existence on earth not a trace has remained.”’ 


THE GULISTAN OF SA’DI. 


Bole ey Rot Qe Cob APR LE Sp BOONE 
NEW YORK |! | 1925 


Printed in Great Britain by St. Stephen’s Press, 
St. Stephen Street, Bristol. 


PREFACE 


The name of Jaffa (Hebrew Yaphé, Arabic Yéfd) is of 
Phoenician origin and means ‘‘ the beautiful’’ or, according to 
St Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘‘ the observatory of gladness’’ ; and 
the fame of its beauty has never ceased throughout the ages of 
history. An Egyptian traveller, thirty-two centuries ago, 
praises the charm of its gardens; a Jewish pilgrim of the 
Middle Ages calls it ‘‘the Beauty of the Seas’’; and the 
French poet, Lamartine, writing at the beginning of the last 
century, describes it as ‘‘a perfect abode for a man weary of 
life, and who desires nothing but a place in the sun.’’ Few 
towns, indeed, can rival Jaffa, with its white or gaily-coloured 
houses towering amphitheatrically above one another up the 
steep slopes of its rocky promontory, with its two wings of 
yellow sand-dunes stretching north and south along the shore, 
and with its green belt of orange groves covered at one and the 
same season with the gold of the ripening fruits and the snow 
of the new blossoms. Long rows of cypresses, designed to 
screen the fruit-trees from the sea-winds, cut dark lines across 
the emerald expanse of leaves which here and there is studded 
with the red, flame-coloured, star-shaped blossoms of the pome- 
granate. During the day the air currents that rise vertically 
from the heated surface of the soil lift the scent of the orange 
flowers high up into the sky, where it is lost; but, in the still- 
ness of night, all the perfumes of Provence and all the scents 
of Arabia fade into insignificance compared with the powerful 
fragrance which the cool wind that blows down from the moun- 
tains of Judah carries with it for miles over the dark blue sea, 
telling the mariner that the Land of Promise is near. 

But if the fertility of its soil and the bold outline of its site 
expressed itself in beauty that attracted and charmed the 
traveller, these same circumstances and others, arising out of 
the geographical location of the town and the topographical 
features of its immediate surroundings, resulted in endowing 
Jaffa with great military strength and agricultural and commer- 
cial wealth. Thus it is that Jaffa became a standing temptation 
to the pirates of the sea and the roving bedouins of the desert, 
an obstacle alike and a coveted prize to every invader and con- 
queror, a terra irredenta to every nation that ever ruled on the 
Judaean mountains. No other city, perhaps, has been so often 
besieged, captured, sacked, destroyed, and rebuilt. 

‘Yet, notwithstanding the romance of its eventful career, 


THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


writers on Palestine, fascinated by the spiritual glory of 
Jerusalem, have left Jaffa entirely aside and have made no 
attempt, so far, to present a comprehensive picture of its his- 
tory. It is true that the many radical destructions which the 
city has undergone have left very few monumental remains 
capable of arresting the interest of the lover of old things. But 
the records of Babylon and Egypt, of Phoenicia and Assyria, 
of the Hebrews and the Greeks, of Rome and Byzantium, of 
the Arabs and the Latins, as well as the narratives of the many 
pilgrims of the great religions to whom Jerusalem is holy, are 
comparatively rich in reminiscences referring to our town. To 
collect this widely scattered material, to sift and to check it, 
and to attempt to reconstruct out of it the history of Jaffa, is 
the purpose which I have set myself with the present volume. 

I have to express my acknowledgments to the various friends 
whose kindness in allowing me to peruse their libraries has 
enabled me to supplement the material in my own possession ; 
foremost amongst these friends are: Colonel Harold J. 
Solomon, late Director of the Department of Commerce and 
Industry of the Government of Palestine, Mr. H. C. Luke, 
late Assistant Governor of the Jerusalem District, Mr. Albert M. 
Hyamson, Controller of Labour of the Government of Pales- 
tine, and Dr. Arthur Ruppin, of the Zionist Executive in 
Jerusalem. I also wish to thank Messrs. Frederick Murad and 
Ali Effendi el-Mustakkim, both of Jaffa, for their kindness in 
supplying me with information relating to events at Jaffa within 
the period covered by their own recollections. 

The illustrations are partly reproductions of material pub- 
lished in the works of previous writers, z#z. al. in the Quarterly 
Statements of the Palestine Exploration Fund, to whose Com- 
mittee I herewith express my obligation for their permission to 
reproduce the pictures in question. The 1923 map of Jaffa and 
Tel Aviv was specially drawn for the present volume by the 
technical services of the Township of Tel Aviv. ‘The pictures 
of Jaffa by Kootwijck and Lebrun are from photographic re- 
productions which were kindly made for me by the learned 
Fathers of the Ecole Biblique des Dominicains de St Etienne 
at Jerusalem. The two aerial photographs of Jaffa taken by 
the German Flying Corps in 1917 were graciously placed at my 
disposal by Mr. Arieh Salomon, of Jaffa; whilst the aerial 
views reproduced on pages 2, 162, 164, 165, 175 and 176 were 
specially taken for this book in July, 1923, by the R.A.F. 
Station at Ramleh (Palestine), a courtesy which I deeply 
appreciate and for which I express my sincere gratitude to Air 
Vice-Marshal Sir Henry Hugh Tudor, K.C.B., C.M.G., 
General Officer Commanding the Troops in Palestine, and to 
the officers under his command. 

Jaffa, February, 1924. Debs 


CHAPTER. 


CONTENTS 


I. Tue BEGINNINGS (c. 4000-2500 B.C.) 


II. JAFFA UNDER THE PHARAOHS (c. 2500-803 B.C.) 


III. JAFFA UNDER THE ASSYRIANS, 


(803-332 B.C.) 


BABYLONIANS AND PERSIANS 


IV. JAFFA UNDER THE GREEKS AND THE JEWS (332-66 B.C.) 


V. JAFFA UNDER THE ROMANS AND THE BYZANTINES 
(66 B.C.-A.D. 636) 


VI. JAFFA UNDER THE ARABS (A.D. 636-1099) 


VII. JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS (A.D. 1099-1268) 


VIII. JAFFA UNDER EGypTIAN RULE (A.D. 1268-1516) 


IX. JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS (1516-1917) AND UNDER THE BRITISH 
OccuPATION AND MANDATE (since 1917) 


APPENDIX I: 


3 jh i 


THE JUDEO-GREEK NECROPOLIS OF JAFFA 
TEL AVIV 
THE ORIGIN OF THE JAFFA ORANGE 


STATISTICS OF SHIPPING, TRADE, AND 
POPULATION OF JAFFA, FROM 1886 TO 


(a) Movement of Ships at Jaffa, 1886-1922 
(b) Trade of Jaffa, 1886-1922 
(c) Export of Jaffa Oranges, 1885-1923 


(d) The Population of Jaffa, 1886-1922 


Books AND ARTICLES QUOTED 


INDEX 


THE 
1923 


PAGE 


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MIS TO Ble S PRAT ONS 


PAGE 
Jarra: THE OLD CITY IN 1914, FROM THE NoRTH frontispiece 
JAFFA: THE ARAB TOWN IN 1923, FROM THE NORTH facing 2 
THE EcGypTiIAN NAME OF JAFFA 13 
THE PRAYER OF BEN AsBpas (Pheenician inscription) 41 
Coin oF Jarra (c. 60 B.C.) 58 
%» % 58 
ROMAN COIN COMMEMORATING NAVAL VICTORY AT JAFFA 70 
” oe) ” 9 7O 
ROMAN Corin INScRIBED JOPPE FLAVIA 71 
INSCRIPTION OF THE EMPEROR FREDERICK II 117 
JAFFA IN 1483 facing 132 
JAFFA IN 1598 a 134 
JAFFA IN 1675 “ 134 
JAFFA IN 1726 “4 138 
BONAPARTE VISITING HIS PLAGUE-STRICKEN SOLDIERS Pe 150 
THE BAZAAR AND FOUNTAIN OF ABU-NABBUT IN 1834 Wy 154 
THE SEBIL ABU-NABBUT IN 1914 “3 154 
JAFFA IN 1839 og 158 
Map oF JAFFA IN 1863 me 160 
THE AJAMI QUARTER IN 1923 He 162 
JAFFA IN I917 ys 164 
THE OLD CiTy IN 1923, FROM THE WEST S5 165 
THE OLD City IN 1923, FROM THE EAST 8 166 
HEBREW TITULUS FROM THE JUDEO-GREEK NECROPOLIS 170 
GREEK TITULUS FROM THE JUDEO-GREEK NECROPOLIS 72 
JAFFA AND TEL AVIV IN 1917 facing 174 
THE CENTRAL ParT OF TEL AVIV IN 1923 Pe 176 
A CoRNER OF TEL AVIV IN JULY, 1923 ¥ 178 
Map OF JAFFA AND TEL Aviv, JULY, 1923 177 


SKETCH Map OF PALESTINE at end of volume 


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NOTE ON ABBREVIATIONS 


USED IN THE FOOTNOTES 


P.E.F.Q.S. Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statements 
Babi tS: Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society 
LMD.P.V. Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palastinavereins 


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CTA TE Rat 
THE BEGINNINGS (ce. 4000—c. 2500 B.C.) 


Jaffa is one of the oldest existing cities of the 
world. Pliny, and Pomponius Mela’ after him, 
tell us that it was founded even prior to the 
Deluge; other ancient authors are more precise and 
ascribe its foundation and the origin of its name to 
Japhet, one of the sons of Noah. One thing is 
certain, namely, that the oldest historical records 
we possess to-day are of more recent date than the 
first foundation of the city. 

The site of Jaffa was, indeed, predestined to give 
rise to an important settlement. A rocky hill, about 
130 feet high, steep towards the sea but with a 
gentle slope on the land side, with lower ridges 
stretching forth from it towards the north and the 
south, represents the only eminence of the kind and 
the only strong position on the shallow coast from 
Egypt to Mount Carmel. A true cape, it projects 
into the sea, a landmark visible from a far distance; 
the shore, just north of it, bends inward and forms 
a small bay with a deep sandy beach. In front of 
the main hill a low line of reefs extends into the 
waters in a rough semi-circle, forming a shallow 
natural harbour. Behind the hill, there stretches a 
tract of fertile soil, rich in water at a moderate 
depth : a region which the hill and its northern and 
southern prolongations have screened from the 

1 Joppe Phoenicum, antiquior terrarum tnundatione, ut ferunt. 


Pliny: Historia Naturalis, Lib. V, cap. 13. 
* De Sita Orbis Libri f11, Lib. I, cap: 2. 


2 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


danger of the sand dunes, which everywhere else 
along this sandy coast have for many centuries been 
eating their way into the cultivated lands. It is on 
this side that Jaffa is encircled by the belt of orange 
groves for which the town is famous; part of the 
lands covered to-day by these groves was in olden 
times occupied by marshes, which contributed to 
increase the natural strength of the site against 
enemies approaching it from the east. Near the 
foot of the hill, on its north-eastern side, two 
perennial springs of good drinking water are 
happily located in such a manner that, when the 
town was encompassed by walls, the springs were 
generally situated within the latter, a circumstance 
which enabled Jaffa on several occasions to sustain 
sieges prolonged over several months. The 
harbour, it is true, is but small and shallow, and 
all but safe when a strong wind blows from the 
north or the west. But in those remote times when 
the Mediterranean Sea was still to the mariner, as 
Homer says, 


‘‘ The perilous gulph of Ocean... 
That wild expanse terrible, which even ships 
Pass not, though form’d to cleave their way with ease, 
And joyful, in propitious winds from Jove,”’ 


when the sailors’ greatest terror was to be forced 
“ to roam all night the Ocean’s dreary waste ”’ 


instead of, as was their usage, beaching their craft 
when evening fell, and awaiting the return of day, 
before again confiding their flat-bottomed trading 
barks to the perils of the waters : in those days even 
the shallow harbour of Jaffa, with its dangerous 
reefs, was a welcome shelter. It was, moreover, the 
place of landing nearest Jerusalem, and was 


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HLYON AHL WOU “2st NI NMOL GVUV AHL : Vaave Z Old 








THE BEGINNINGS 3 


situated near the most important crossways of 
southern Palestine. In front of it passed the oldest 
trade route and military highway of the world, the 
“Way of the Sea ” (Via Maris), or the “ Way of the 
Philistines,’ which led from the Nile to Damascus 
and the Euphrates, across Mount Carmel and the 
hills of Galilee; it was also the starting point of all 
the roads which, by the valleys of the low-country 
of the Shephelah and the narrow gorges of the 
Judean mountains, led from the coast and the Via 
Maris up to Jerusalem and Shechem (Nablus). Thus 
the natural strength of the hill, the singular 
strategic value of its geographical position, and the 
fertility of its immediate surroundings combined to 
shape the destiny of Jaffa as a place of great 
importance, commercial as well as military: a 
harbour to own which was, at all times, the fervent 
wish of those in power at Jerusalem, a landing-place 
essential alike to the peaceful traders and the con- 
querors from the sea, a naval base which opened to 
him who held it, the maritime road between 
Palestine and Egypt, and enabled him to dispense 
with the arduous march across the waterless wastes 
of the desert of Sinai, a fortress which no army 
moving either south or north through the Maritime 
Plain or up from it into the hills could afford to 
leave unreduced on its flanks or in its rear. And 
thus also it happens that the history of Jaffa, more 
than that of any other city of Palestine, reflects, in 
all its small and big misfortunes, the eventful 
history of the most frequently and most bitterly 
contested of countries. 

It is probably towards the beginning of the fourth 
millenium B.C. that the maritime plain of 
Palestine was occupied by its first human inhabi- | 


4 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


tants of whom material traces have been found. 
This population was non-semitic, and had probably 
entered the country from beyond Jordan, several 
thousand years before. They were a short-set race 
of hunters, who had already learned the art of 
manufacturing flint tools and arms by shivering 
splinters off the natural stone, and of fashioning out 
of clay rough pottery for their domestic uses. For 
dwellings, they had first elected the innumerable 
caves which are to be found in the limestone hills 
that fringe the maritime plain along its eastern 
boundary. This plain was, at the time, divided into 
two parts of very different aspect and conditions of 
vegetation. Its northern part, known in Bible 
times as the plain of Sharon, limited in the south 
by a line corresponding roughly with the course of 
the river Auzah that flows into the sea about three 
miles north of Jaffa, was covered with dense forests 
of oak which were the haunt of wild animals such 
as rhinoceros, aurochs, bear and lion; to the south 
of this forest, however, the region later known as 
the plain of Philistia was open country, devoid of 
natural obstacles, and rich in herds of deer, 
antelopes, and wild goats. Having rested from his 
wanderings and found a permanent home on the 
fringe of the plain, the hunter set himself to tame 
and domesticate sheep, cows and goats, and to 
cultivate the soil. At the same time, he improved 
his technique of flint-working and learned to polish 
his stone implements and arms by artificial friction. 
But as, better fed and clothed, his numbers rapidly 
increased, new vacant lands and new dwellings had 
to be found. Where caves were not available, he 
selected rocky hills or spurs, and built on their 
highest point primitive huts of sun-dried clay 


THE BEGINNINGS 5 


bricks, and, for greater safety, surrounded every 
such settlement with an earth rampart, which he 
soon learned to face with large stones gathered from 
the fields. Advancing westwards in search of new 
lands, along the southern fringe of the forest of 
Sharon, man at last found his progress arrested by 
the sea. Here, the hills of Jaffa offered him the 
ideal site for a permanent settlement: a lofty rock 
from which the view ranged far over the country, 
and enabled him to watch the approach of friend 
or enemy, good stone for building, two copious 
springs of sweet water, towards the land a belt of 
marshes that would keep enemies at a distance, an 
unlimited supply of food in the shape of game from 
the marshes and shellfish from along the shore. 
And thus the first community of men was settled at 
Jaffa. Soon, the easy sandy beach and the com- 
parative smoothness of the natural harbour within 
the shelter of the reefs tempted the inhabitants to 
make closer acquaintance with the waters and the 
animal world which they contained. Timber could 
be obtained easily and in plenty from the forests 
north of the Aujah; a few caves in the seaward 
slopes of the hills furnished ready-made caches for 
the small primitive craft and for fishing tackle. The 
sea was found to be rich in fish of various kinds. 
The beach was littered, as it is to-day, with empty 
shells, pierced at the hinge, ready for stringing; 
these were first picked up as ornaments for personal 
use, but, later, they became an object of trade with 
the cities situated further inland. Piles of such 
shells have been unearthed at Gezer; and, in the 
sand dunes of Jaffa, there have been found dumps 

2 R. A. Stewart Macalister, The Excavation of Gezer, London, 1912, 


Vol. II, pp. 21 and 94. 
B 


6 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


of flint tools belonging to this or the immediately 
succeeding period.’ 

The short fishing cruises of the beginning 
gradually led to more ambitious expeditions along 
the coast; and once it was recognised that the sea 
provided a much better means of communication 
along the coast than the land route, a regular coast- 
ing trade came into existence between Jaffa and the 
other maritime cities. 

Towards the middle of the third millenium B.C., 
the peninsula of Arabia began to pour out over the 
adjoining countries the surplus of its rapidly-in- 
creasing population of Semitic nomads, who were, 
henceforth, to cover western Asia with inter- 
mittently recurring waves of invaders. The first 
of these invasions was that of the Phoenicians and 
Canaanites; the most notable of the subsequent 
ones were those of the Hebrews and, more recently, 
of the Moslem Arabs. 

Spreading themselves over the maritime plain, 
the Phoenicians in Syria, and the Canaanites in 
Palestine, conquered the settlements of the first 
neolithic inhabitants. Together with the latter’s 
possessions, the invaders took over their civiliza- 
tion; but, thanks to the energy and _ superior 
intellect and power of adaptation of the Semites, 
the country soon began to make rapid strides 
forward on the road of both cultural and material 
progress. 

The tools and arms in use continued for some 
time to be made in polished flint; but, whereas 
under the previous inhabitants, each man used to 
make his own implements; in the Canaanite period 


* Paul Karge, Rephaim. Die vorgeschichtliche Kultur Palestinas 
und Pheniziens, Paderborn, 1918, p. 179. 


THE BEGINNINGS 7 


flint-knapping became a trade practised by certain 
specialized individuals. The flint factories of this 
time are easily to be identified by the heaps of 
waste chips lying in their neighbourhood. Such 
heaps of flint chips, found in the dunes near Jaffa,’ 
indicate that the manufacture of flint tools and arms 
was one of the early industries of its Canaanite 
inhabitants. 

Although no visible remains are known of the 
city at the period under review, the study of the 
other Canaanite fortresses which have _ been 
unearthed in the plain, completed by the scanty in- 
formation about Jaffa contained in the Egyptian 
records, which we shall meet later on in the course 
of this work, enables us to draw what may be taken 
as a reasonably fair picture of the Jaffa of 
Canaanite times. 

The town was composed of an irregular mass of 
small stone houses crowded together from the top 
of the hill downwards, without any preconceived 
plan, and without anything between them deserving 
the appellation of streets. It was surrounded by a 
powerful stone wall, built up of large unhewn 
boulders, the interstices being filled with small 
stone and loam mortar. In the early days of the 
city, the population still being few in numbers, the 
area contained within the walls was small, and the 
whole fortress occupied only the highest parts of 
the hill. Consequently, in case of a siege, the city 
was cut off from access to the springs; and, to 
obviate the dangers of possible lack of water, rock- 
cut water cisterns were provided under the houses. 
Later on, as the population increased, and the area 


* Karge, Rephaim, p. 179. 


8 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


of the city extended, the walls were shifted further 
and further down the hill, until a time was reached 
when they comprised both springs within their 
circle. Heavy towers, built at intervals of eighty 
or a hundred feet into the wall from which they 
projected at right angles, increased the defensive 
strength of the place. The thickness of the city 
wall, judging by analogy with other towns of this 
period, may have ranged from 9 to 12 feet, and its 
height from 30 to 36 feet, thus rendering an assault 
by portable ladders nearly impossible. The 
Canaanite fortresses had, as a rule, only one gate- 
way, and this in itself had the appearance of a 
fortress. “It was composed of three large blocks 
of masonry, forming a re-entering face, consider- 
ably higher than the adjacent curtains, and pierced 
near the top with square openings furnished with 
mantlets, so as to give both a front and flank view 
of the assailants. The wooden doors in the receded 
face were covered with metal and raw hides, thus 
affording a protection against axe or fire. The build- 
ing was strong enough not only to defy the bands 
of adventurers who roamed the country, but was 
able to resist for an indefinite time the operations 
of a regular siege.” Supposing the enemy had 
succeeded in taking these outer defences, they 
would find themselves confronted, on the summit 
of the hill, with a strongly built citadel which con- 
tained within its precincts the palace of the king 
(the city constituting a kingdom by itself) and the 
sanctuary of the chief deities: the Baal or Lord 
Dagon, patron of fishermen and farmers, and his 
consort Astarte (Ashtoreth), goddess of love and 


* Gaston Maspéro, The Struggle of the Nations, London, 1910, 
p. 128. 


THE BEGINNINGS 9 


fertility. The king’s palace also was enclosed by a 
strong wall provided with massively-built gates, 
which could be forced only at the expense of fresh 
losses, unless cowardice or treachery facilitated the 
task of the besiegers. The “high place,’ or 
sanctuary, was composed of an open space with a 
sacred tree, a row of sacred standing stones, and an 
altar of sacrifice. The standing stones represented 
the “house of the god” (deth-el) and were 
worshipped by being anointed with oil. At one 
time, the sacrifice of infants, probably first-born 
males, became a gruesome feature of this primitive 
cult; similarly when new houses were built, the god 
was propitiated by the sacrifice of a child whose 
body, enclosed in a jar, was placed among the 
foundation-stones of the building. But, as civiliza- 
tion progressed, human sacrifice was replaced by a 
symbolic action consisting in placing into the 
foundations an oil lamp and two small dishes of 
pottery. 

The burial customs are reminiscent of conditions 
in Egypt, at least where chiefs or the wealthier 
citizens are concerned. Their bodies were placed 
in caves sunk into the rock, together with the 
utensils of daily use which were theirs during their 
life-time : the dishes out of which they had taken 
their meals, the arms of the warrior, the jewels and 
mirror of the woman, the toys of the child; for the 
grave was the “house of eternity,” in which the 
deceased -was believed to continue leading a second 
life. The poorer people had probably to be con- 
tented with a large common grave outside the city 
walls, where their remains were apt to be disturbed 
and scattered when the development of the town 
claimed sites for new dwellings. 


10 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


The chief occupations of the inhabitants were 
fishing and agriculture. The scarcity of rain on 
the one hand, and the abundance of water in the 
subsoil on the other, were bound to make the people 
of Jaffa experts in irrigation. Beautiful orchards 
of pomegranates and apples interspersed with date- 
palms, and _ well-cultivated vegetable gardens, 
sprang up in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
city; on land, situated too high to be irrigated, 
flourished the olive and the vine, the fig and the 
almond; wheat and barley, lentils and beans, were 
grown on the more distant fields, together with flax 
for linen. Several industries came early into 
existence, such as spinning and weaving and dye- 
ing, the pressing of oil and the manufacture of 
wine. The acquisition of the potter’s wheel 
resulted in considerable improvement in the shape 
and quality of clay products. The development of 
coastal shipping led to the opening of regular trade 
routes with Egypt and Cyprus, and even with the 
coasts of Asia Minor and the distant isles of the 
/Egean. With the wares of these countries the 
influence of Egyptian and A‘gean art must have 
made itself felt in Jaffa as it did in the other cities 
of Palestine; whilst the importation of copper and 
bronze led to the gradual substitution of bronze for 
flint as the principal material employed in the 
manufacture of arms.’ 

The constant intercourse with the seaports to the 
north, and the similarity of the mode of living 
resulting from their maritime pursuits must 
gradually have drawn between the population of 
Jaffa and that of the Phoenician towns closer bonds 


* Karge, Rephaim, p. 212. 


THE BEGINNINGS II 


of relationship than those which united the former 
to the inland cities of Palestine; with the result 
that, in the course of time, Jaffa came to be regarded 
as a Phoenician city. Yet Phoenician, though being 
the common language of the people, was not the 
only one in use. 

During the fourth and third milleniums B.C., 
Syria and a part of Palestine had been subject to 
the Sumerian and Babylonian empires; and this 
long period of political and military influence had 
resulted in establishing the Babylonian language 
and script as the official tongue of the country. 
Whether the Sumerian and Babylonian conquests 
of these early times extended as far south as Jaffa, 
we do not know; but several centuries after the 
disappearance of Babylonian rule in Palestine, we 
still find—in the Tel-el-Amarna letters of which we 
shall hear later on—the Chief of Jaffa using the 
Babylonian language and cuneiform script in his 
official correspondence with his suzerain, the king 
of Egypt. 


CHARTER RWIT 
JAFFA UNDER THE PHARAOHS (c. 2500—803 B.C.) 


It was early in the third millenium B.C. that 
Egypt, for the first time, appears to have carried 
its arms across the peninsula of Sinai into 
Palestine; and we have documentary evidence 
showing that from the VIth Egyptian dynasty on- 
wards, that is from about 2500 B.C., the Pharoahs 
no longer hesitated to transport their troops by sea 
from the mouths of the Nile to southern Syria.” It 
is more than probable that Jaffa, as the nearest safe 
harbour beyond the desert, became the chief naval 
base of the Egyptians in Palestine; but, notwith- 
standing the importance which they must have 
attached to their undisturbed possession or control 
of Jaffa, we do not find the town directly mentioned 
in the records of Egypt, previous to the reign of 
Pharoah Thutmosis III, of the XVIIIth dynasty. 

During the reign of Queen  Hatshopsitu, 
daughter of Thutmosis II, the people of Syria and 
Palestine had succeeded in throwing off the 
Egyptian yoke. The rebellion had naturally 
started in the more distant regions; but by the time 
Thutmosis III (1501-1447 B.C.) succeeded his 
mother Hatshopsitu on the throne, Gaza was the 
only important town left to the Pharaoh in Asia. 
In the spring 1478 B.C., he first crossed the desert 


* Gaston Maspéro, The Struggle of the Nations, London, 1gro, 
p. 192. 


I2 


JAFFA UNDER THE PHARAOHS 13 


of Sinai with his army; and in the course of seven- 
teen campaigns which followed each other, in 
almost yearly succession, he completely re- 
established Egyptian rule over all the countries as 
far as the Euphrates. During the campaign of 
1472 B.C. he started by securing the coast and 
occupying the harbours, including Jaffa; he then 
returned to Egypt for the first time by water, and 
hereafter the army was regularly transported to 
Palestine and Syria by the fleet’. On his return he 
caused the names of all the 113 cities taken in the 
course of his campaign to be 

inscribed on one of the pylons V 
of his great temple of Karnak; Ke 
it is on this list that we find the 

earliest mention of the name 


of Jaffa, under the form of 0 ij 
Ya-pu in hieroglyphic represen- 
tation. That the inhabitants of RHA 


the country at the time were The Egyptian name of 
generally wealthy, and lived in sper ihe s Nate nt 
luxury, may be inferred from the fact that they are 
mentioned as having chariots of silver and gold, 
and that many gold and silver articles, inlaid 
tables, costly vases of copper and bronze, and other 
valuables are enumerated amongst the spoil taken 
by the Egyptians.’ 

It would appear that it is the story of the capture 
of Jaffa by Thusmosis III’s general Thutyi during 
this campaign, that is preserved in the “ Papyrus 


1 J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt. Historical Documents. 
Chicago, 1906, Vol. II, p. 167. 

2 W. Max Miiller, Die Palestinaliste Thutmosis III, in Mitteilungen 
der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft, 1907, p. 21. 

®° S. R. Driver, Modern Research as illustrating the Bible, London, 


1909, Pp. 33- 


14 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


Harris,” a document written (or copied on some 
older original) about two hundred years after the 
event to which it refers.’ 

Thutyi, having taken with him the great wand of 
the Pharaoh, which was believed to possess magic 
powers, starts towards Jaffa with a small force of 
chariots and 600 infantry, the latter carrying with 
them 400 large jars and a good supply of ropes and 
wooden stocks. On arriving before the town, 
Thutyi sends a message to the prince of Jaffa, in- 
forming him that he has thrown off his allegiance 
to Thutmosis III, that he has deserted the 
Egyptian army after having stolen his master’s 
magic wand, and that he is ready to espouse the 
cause of Jaffa, and to take part in its defence. The 
prince, elated at the prospect of this new and 
valuable addition to his forces, invites Thutyi into 
the city, but is prudent enough not to allow the 
Egyptian soldiers to enter the town as well. After 
having spent an hour with Thutyi over copious 
libations of the excellent wine of the region, the 
prince expresses his wish to see the magic wand. 
The crafty Egyptian replies that the wand 1s 
hidden in one of the jars containing the fodder 
destined for his horses, and that, if the prince will 
allow the Egyptian soldiers to enter the. town in 
order to feed their animals, the wand will be found. 
The prince agrees, and the Egyptian force is 
allowed to penetrate into the town. The Pharaoh’s 
wand is brought, and Thutyi uses it to strike a 
terrible blow at the head of his host, who falls to 

1 Translated by Goodwin in Transactions of the Society of Biblicat 
Archeology III, 340-348, and by Maspéro: Etudes Egyptologiques I, 
53-56; see also Maspéro, Les Contes Populaires de l’Egypte Ancienne, 


Paris, 1889, pp. 149-160, and W. M. Flinders Petrie, Egyptian Tales, 
Second Series, London, 1913, pp. 2-12. 


JAFFA UNDER THE PHARAOHS 15 


the ground, deprived of consciousness. He then 
packs 200 of his soldiers into 200 of the jars, fills 
the other 200 jars with the ropes and the wooden 
stocks, closes all the jars with his seal, and causes 
them to be loaded on to the back of his remaining 
soldiers whom he orders to carry these vessels into 
the citadel, and, on arrival there, to free their 
comrades enclosed in them, and to bind the garrison 
by means of the ropes and stocks. The strange 
procession arrives before the gate of the citadel, 
where the herald of the murdered prince is made to 
proclaim that the Egyptians have been defeated 
and that their pack train has been captured, together 
with Thutyi himself. The queen of Jaffa, deceived 
by this false news of her husband’s victory, orders 
the gate to be thrown open: the Egyptians, once 
admitted, make themselves masters of the citadel 
and the town; and Thutyi triumphant despatches 
a messenger to Pharaoh, informing him that the 
city of Jaffa is taken with all its chief inhabitants, 
and inviting him to send an escort to carry the 
prisoners to Egypt, where they are destined to join 
the other male and female slaves of the temple of 
Amon-Ra, king of the gods. 

Egypt, in conquering Palestine, had no other 
object in view than to protect herself against the 
danger of a new semitic invasion like that of the 
Hyksos, and at the same time to increase her 
revenue. Accordingly, as long as the native princes 
of Palestine acknowledged Pharaoh as their lord, 
and continued to pay their tribute regularly, they 
were left free to intrigue and to quarrel among 
themselves as they liked. The suzerain power was 
represented by Egyptian officers stationed in the 
principal towns and supported by small detach- 


16 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


ments of Egyptian chariots and infantry; the 
factors on which the Pharaohs depended chiefly for 
the maintenance of their rule were the rivalry of 
the local princes and the intimidating effect pro- 
duced by the severity displayed during their 
campaigns and by the cruelty of the punishment 
inflicted on rebel prisoners. At the same time the 
practice was followed always to keep a number of 
young men from the princely houses of the various 
subject countries as hostages in Egypt, where they 
were brought up in the manners and ideas of Egypt, 
in prevision of the time when the Pharaoh’s pleasure 
would appoint them rulers in their native country, 
either on the death of the reigning prince or king- 
let, or on his deposition as punishment for rebellion 
or other misdeed. 

A flood of interesting light 1s thrown on con-~ 
ditions in Palestine at this period by the collection 
of documents which have become famous under the 
name of the “ Tel-el-Amarna letters.” 

When the Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (1383-1365 
B.C.) had abandoned the Amon-cult of his fathers 
for that of the sun-god Aten as source of all life, 
power and force in the Universe, he changed his 
name to Akhen-aten and built himself a new 
capital, as a centre of worship for his new religion. 
The new city was situated about 170 miles south 
of Cairo, on the site occupied to-day by the village 
of Tel-el-Amarna. In 1887, some fellaheen, who 
were digging for plunder among the ruins and 
were carrying away the bricks of Akhen-aten’s 
buildings in order to use them for their modern 
houses, came upon a buried chamber, containing 
several hundred clay tablets covered with Baby- 
lonian cuneiform script. On examination, these 


JAFFA UNDER THE PHARAOHS 17 


tablets proved to be a part of the State archives of 
Amenhotep IV (Akhen-aten) and his immediate 
predecessor, Amenhotep III, and to consist mostly 
of reports and letters addressed to these two kinys 
by Egyptian governors and native princes in 
Palestine and Syria, as well as by various foreign 
sovereigns having relations with Egypt. We learn 
from this correspondence that the Egyptians were 
rapidly losing their hold upon their Asiatic 
possessions. Most of the towns were either in- 
triguing against, or in open war with, each other, 
whilst the Hittites in the north and a people called 
the Habiri (no doubt a branch of the Hebrews) in 
the east, had crossed the frontiers and were 
advancing into the country, in many places in 
alliance with the local inhabitants, and everywhere 
driving before them the Egyptian garrisons which 
were much too small to offer any effective resistance. 
In some of the reports the writers describe the 
dangers to which they are exposed, and send 
urgent and sometimes moving appeals to Pharaoh 
to send them assistance; in others, some of the 
princes bring complaints and charges of disloyalty 
against their colleagues, or protest emphatically 
their own fidelity. Incidentally the letters show 
that, notwithstanding the political chaos prevailing 
in the country, a very active maritime trade was 
going on between the markets of the Nile and the 
harbours of Palestine, the Egyptian hold being 
much stronger and more lasting on the towns of the 
coast than on those further inland. 

Jaffa (Ya-fu) is mentioned on two occasions in 
the Tel-el-Amarna correspondence: once in a letter 
from Abd-hiba, prince of Jerusalem, and once in a 
letter from Y abitiri, prince of Jaffa and Gaza. 


18 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


Abd-hiba, writing at a time when Jaffa was 
evidently in danger of being attacked by some 
enemy, reports to Pharaoh that he has sent a 
number of his own men down to Jaffa to strengthen 
the garrison of this city, but complains that they 
have been captured by one Buia, son of Gulat, who 
is keeping them prisoners.’ 

Yabitir1 was one of those men of noble family 
who had spent their youth at the court of Egypt. 
On his return to Palestine, he had been appointed 
prince of Jaffa and Gaza, and, as such, he enjoyed 
the assistance—or was placed under the _ super- 
vision—of an Egyptian officer in command of a 
small force. Someone having apparently accused 
Yabitiri of attempting rebellion, the latter now 
writes to Pharaoh in an endeavour to justify him- 
self, as follows :— 

“ To my lord, the king, my gods, my sun 
Yabitiri, your servant, the dust of your feet. At 
the feet of my lord, the king, my gods, my sun, 
seven and seven times, I fall. Behold further, 
I am a faithful servant of my lord, the king. I 
look here and I look there, and there is no light, 
but I look to my lord, the king, and there is 
light. And (though) a brick move away from 
under its coping, I will not remove from under 
the feet of my lord, the king. Let my lord, the 
king, ask Yanhamu, his officer. When I was 
(still) young, he carried me to Egypt, and I 
served my lord, the king, and stood at my lord, 
the king’s gate. Let my lord, the king, ask his 
officer if I do (not) guard the gate of Azzati’ and 
* See Hugo Winckler, The Tel-el-Amarna Letters, 1896, p. 303. 


* Winckler, op. cit., p. 303. 
° Gaza. 


JAFFA UNDER THE PHARAOHS 19 


the gate of Yapu. I am also with the troops of 

my lord, the king. Wherever they march, I am 

with them, and so [am with them now. The yoke 
of my lord, the king, is upon my neck, and I am 
bearing it.” 

Whilst giving us but little direct information 
about Jaffa, the Tel-el-Amarna letters do show us 
that, early in the fourteenth century B.C., Jaffa was 
an important fortress, seat of an Egyptian garrison, 
and ruled by a native prince acting as governor 
for Egypt. That its undisturbed possession was 
looked upon as a matter of vital importance to 
Pharaoh is proved by the fact that the prince of 
Jerusalem, himself threatened by the Habiri, does 
not hesitate to deprive himself of a part of his own 
men in order to strengthen the garrison of the sea 
port. The circumstance, moreover, that it is pre- 
cisely Jerusalem that is called upon to furnish the 
additional levies required for Jaffa, is evidence to 
the close solidarity of interest which united the 
principal town of the Judean mountains and the 
chief harbour of southern Palestine in the four- 
teenth century B.C., as at present. 

The appeals of the princes and governors of 
Palestine remained unheeded. Neither Akhen- 
aten, occupied exclusively with his religious 
reforms, nor his successors Tutankh-amen and Aj, 
made any serious effort to save their possessions in 
Asia; within less than a generation the Egyptian 
garrisons had been driven out, or had capitulated, 
and the Habiri were the masters in the country. 
But, mixing and intermarrying with the inhabitants 
of the country, they soon disappeared from the 
scene as a separate ethnic group. The inland 
cities and villages remained Canaanitish, and the 


20 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


cities of the coast, including Jaffa, Phoenician; and 
once again, Palestine was divided into about as 
many warring factions as there were important 
towns. 

The Pharaoh Seti I (1313-1292 B.C.), in his first 
years, made an expedition into Syria. After having 
crossed the peninsula of Sinai, he turned towards 
the Dead Sea and marched north through the hills 
of Judea and Galilee until he reached the Lebanon; 
he then returned home to Egypt by the Way of 
the Sea, receiving, as he passed through their 
cities, the homage of the Phoenicians. Jaffa not 
being mentioned among the towns taken, it may be 
inferred that this city had probably remained under 
Egyptian control, even through the time of the 
Habiri conquest. 

On the country generally, the hold of Egypt 
remained but weak, until Rameses II (1292-1225 
B.C.), after four Asiatic campaigns directed chiefly 
against the Hittites in northern Syria, concluded 
peace with them by the treaty of 1271, by which 
Palestine was again recognized as an Egyptian 
province. Order was now re-established throughout 
the country, and for about half a century it was 
allowed to develop in peace, with the result that 
agriculture and commerce came to prosper as 
probably never before. The Egyptian galleys 
thronged the Phoenician ports, while those of 
Phoenicia visited Egypt.’ Jaffa, as the port nearest 
to Egypt, must of necessity have had its share of 
this revival of prosperity; its commerce flourished, 
its artisans were distinguished for their skill, its 
gardens were famous for their beauty and the 


* Gaston Maspéro, The Struggle of the Nations, p. 407. 


JAFFA UNDER THE PHARAOHS 21 


quality of their fruit. Of all this, we have evidence 
in the Egyptian Papyrus Anastasi I,’ usually 
known as “ The Travels of a Mohar,” a collection 
of letters composed by a professor of literature at 
the court of Rameses I]; the letters are addressed 
to the author’s friend Nekhtsotep, a “ king’s 
messenger,’ who had just returned from a tour 
through Syria and Palestine, and they give a 
satirical account of his adventures in_ those 
countries. The Mohar is described returning from 
the land of the Hittites via Kadesh on the Orontes 
and across the Lebanon to Byblos, Beyrut, Tyre 
and Sidon, and thence across Galilee and the oak 
forests of the plain of Sharon to Jaffa. “ Thou 
comest into Joppa; thou findest the garden in full 
bloom in its time. Thou penetratest in order to 
eat. Thou findest that the maid who keeps the 
garden is fair. She does whatever thou wantest of 
her. Thou art recognized, thou art brought to trial, 
and owest thy preservation to being a Mohar. Thy 
girdle of the finest stuff thou payest as the price of 
a worthless rag. Thou sleepest every evening with 
a rug of fur over thee. Thou sleepest deep sleep, 
for thou art weary. A thief steals thy sword and 
thy bow from thy side; thy quiver and thy armour 
are cut off in the darkness, thy pair of horses run 
away . . Thy chariot is broken to pieces 

The iron-workers enter into the smithy; they 
rummage in the workshops of the carpenters; the 
handicraftsmen and saddlers are at hand; they do 


* A. H. Sayce, Patriarchal Palestine, London, 1895, pp. 212-24; 
also A. Jeremias, Das alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients, 
Leipsiz, 1906, pp. 302-5. 

? The quiver was fastened by means of straps to the body of the 
chariot; the ‘‘ armour ”’ is the armour plating of the chariot body, to 
which it was also fastened by straps. 


Cc 


7 he THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


whatever thou requirest. They put together thy 
chariot; they put aside the parts of it that are made 
useless; thy spokes are fashioned quite new; thy 
wheels are put on; they put the straps on the axles 
and on the hinder part; they splice thy yoke, they 
put on the box of thy chariot; the workmen in iron 
forge the (?); they put the ring that is wanting on 
thy whip, they replace the lashes upon it.” 

We see here the beautiful gardens of Jaffa, its 
workmen skilled in repairing chariots and in the. 
working of wood, metal and leather. The working 
of iron is already a well-established industry; and 
the name parzal used by the Egyptian scribe for 
designing this new metal is not an Egyptian word, 
but the term darzel 54722 used inthe Bible. We 
see that, at Jaffa, the Mohar finds himself in a 
civilized and friendly country, where the inhabi- 
tants obey the word of the royal messenger. But 
we also learn that the thieves of Jaffa were as 
impudent in the days of Rameses II as are their 
modern successors, and that all the prestige of 
Pharaoh’s envoy was not sufficient to protect him 
from having his arms stolen from his side during 
his sleep, and from having his horses and his 
valuable iron “ armour ” cut from the chariot which 
he had left, unguarded, outside the garden gate. 

In 1205 B.C. the death of the last descendant of 
Rameses II brought the Nineteenth dynasty to an 
end, and the struggles between rival claimants to 
the throne plunged Egypt into a short period of 
anarchy, the result of which was, zzzer alia, a tem- 
porary relaxation of Egyptian rule in Palestine. It 
was during this troubled time that the Hebrew 
tribes, who had escaped from Egypt a generation 
or so previously, crossed the Jordan under the 


JAFFA UNDER THE PHARAOHS 23 


leadership of Joshua and appeared in Western 
Palestine. Thanks to the absence of Egyptian 
opposition, the tribe of Dan found it comparatively 
easy to occupy Jaffa and the surrounding district, 
which had been allotted to them at the distribution 
of the territories to be conquered.’ But to settled 
populations, nothing is more hateful than nomad 
rule, and the Danites must have found it a hard 
task to keep the city in their own power. When the 
prophetess Deborah called the Hebrew tribes to 
arms against the Northern Canaanites under Sisera, 
the men of Dan, absorbed by their own local 
problems and the insecurity of their own position, 
failed to answer the summons, thus incurring the 
well-known reproach of the prophetess : ““ And Dan, 
why did he remain by the ships?”’* But their hold 
over Jaffa was to be only a very ephemeral one; for 
hardly had they begun to adapt themselves to the 
commercial and seafaring habits of the native in- 
habitants, than the latter revolted and, together 
with their kinsmen in the villages, drove the Danites 
out and compelled them to seek refuge in the 
valleys of the Shephelah, the region of low hills 
which separates the Maritime Plain from the 
Mountains of Judea.’ 

Almost at the same moment the Philistines 
appeared under the walls of Jaffa. 

In the course of the fourteenth and_ thirteenth 
centuries B.C., a succession of migratory move- 
ments had driven large masses of European peoples 
south, towards Greece and Crete, and south-east 
towards the centre of Asia Minor. The native 

¥ Joshua XIX, 46. Cp. Eusebius’ Onomasticon, Leipzig, 1904, p. 
a11; ‘* Joppe oppidum Palaestinae maritimum in tribu Dan.’ 


’ Judges V, 17. 
° Judges I, 34. 


24 THE GATEWAY -OF PALESTINE 


populations of these countries, unable to resist the 
invaders, were forced to emigrate and turned their 
face towards Syria. They took the road, a mixed 
host composed of several tribes, known as the 
Pulasati, Zakkalah, Shagalasha, Danauna, and 
Uashasha, the Pulasati (Philistines) holding the 
chief place in the confederation. Sea-rovers by 
profession, their fleet loaded with their more bulky 
possessions sailed south along the coast; whilst the 
main force, accompanied by the women and children 
travelling in ox-drawn square waggons with solid 
wheels, .advanced by land along the sea-shore, 
taking care to remain in sight of the ships. The 
advance was slow; but, destroying the Hittite 
empire on their passage, these “peoples of the Sea,” 
as the Egyptians called them, had already 
conquered Syria and the seaports and coastal plain 
of Palestine, and were preparing themselves to 
invade Egypt, when Rameses III (1198-1167 
B.C.), in the eighth year of his reign, assembled his 
forces and, having sent his fleet north along the 
Palestinian coast, crossed his Asiatic frontier. Ad- 
vancing by forced marches, he encountered the 
main land forces of the invaders on the borders of 
the Shephelah, where, after a stubbornly-contested 
campaign, he succeeded in completely routing 
them. The survivors withdrew hastily to the north- 
west, in the direction of the sea, in order to receive 
the support of their fleet, but the king followed them 
step by step. He rejoined his ships, probably at 
Jaffa, and made straight for the enemy. He found 
the latter encamped near Atlith, and, in a brilliant 
double battle, he destroyed their fleet, and entirely 
defeated the remnants of their army. But, struck 


* Maspéro, The Struggle of the Nations, pp. 446-447. 


JAFFA UNDER THE PHARAOHS 25 


by the high degree of culture and splendid military 
organization of the vanquished, and considering 
probably that the war had decimated the native 
population of the country, Rameses determined to 
convert his captives into vassals who would play 
the part of an outpost of Egyptian power in Asia. 
Accordingly, he planted what remained of the 
defeated tribes along the coast of Palestine and in 
the Maritime Plain: the Philistines were settled in 
the southern part of the country between the 
Egyptian frontier and Jaffa, whilst the forest region 
and the coast further north as far as Mount Carmel 
were assigned to the Zakkalah. Jaffa itself, which 
formed the point of separation between the two 
territories, is nowhere mentioned as having been 
attributed to either of them. It may, therefore, be 
inferred that it received an Egyptian garrison and 
was made directly dependent on Egypt, as a post 
of observation from which Pharaoh’s representative 
was enabled at all times to keep a close watch over 
the doings of his new “ allies,’ and also as a base 
where, in case of emergency, troops could be landed 
at short notice to deal with any attempts at 
rebellion. 

The long period of peace which followed the 
settlement of the Philistines resulted in consider- 
able progress in the state of cultivation of the 
country and in the wealth of its inhabitants. Greater 
wealth led to an increased demand for foreign 
wares, which now began to be imported from 
Cyprus, Crete and the A¢gean countries on a much 
larger scale than had hitherto been the case. Jaffa, 
either through its own citizens or through the 
Philistine and Phoenician traders who frequented its 
market, had an important share in this. profitable 


26 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


trade. The relations with the A‘gean world, 
coupled with the direct contact with the Philistine 
settlers, had for result that architecture and decora- 
tive art, and even religion itself, became influenced 
by Greek motives and ideas. The chief deity of 
the Philistines in their homelands had been the 
goddess Britomartis ; in their new surroundings they 
transferred the legends and ceremonies connected 
with her worship to the Phoenician-Canaanitish 
Ashtoreth, whose name was hellenized into Ater- 
gatis or Derketo. Her form was half that of a 
woman and half that of a fish. She was the 
patroness of fishermen, and a prominent feature of 
her cult was the keeping of sacred fish in a special 
pond situated near her sanctuary. The existence 
of such a pond and sanctuary has been established 
at Ascalon, but so far no proofs have been found 
that they also existed at Jaffa. We know, however, 
from Pliny that Derketo was worshipped at Jaffa; 
and as to the sacred pond, it is probable that it can 
still be seen there to this day, although silted up 
in the course of the many centuries that have passed 
since then. 

At a distance of only a few hundred yards from 
the foot of the main hill of Jaffa, and to the east of 
it, there is, in the midst of lands covered with 
orange-groves, a depression into which every winter 
the rain drains from the surrounding gardens, con- 
verting it into a shallow but quite extensive pond. 
It is called in Arabic the dbassat-Y afa (=the swamp 
of Jaffa). Whereas the soil of the surrounding lands 
is sandy and of a light nature, that of the bassah 
is, for a depth of about two metres, heavy loam; 


1 Hist. nat., V, xiii, 69. 


JAFFA UNDER THE PHARAOHS 27 


this loam can have no other origin than the deposits 
brought with them by the surface waters which must 
have drained for centuries into a basin that existed 
there. “And, in fact, some forty years ago, the 
brother of the present owner, digging there in order 
to drain the site, found the remains of strong old 
walls extending to about two metres below the 
present level of the ground; even a piece of iron, 
looking like a fragment of a ship’s anchor, was 
found. Local tradition sees in this dassah the sup- 
posed harbour of king Solomon; but it is highly 
probable that we have here the silted-up sacred 
pond of the goddess Derketo of Jaffa.’ 

Together with the worship of Ashtoreth, the 
Philistines took over that of her consort Dagon. 
The name of the village Beit-Dejan (Hebr. Beth- 
Dagon, “house of Dagon’’), situated a few miles 
east of Jaffa, clearly points to the existence there, 
at some early period, of a sanctuary of this god. 

It is probably to the native legends of the 
Philistines, in their Cretan and Carian homes, that 
we must look for the origin of the various sea- 
monster tales which centre in Jaffa and its neigh- 
bourhood :’* the legend of Perseus, the Lycian sun- 
hero, and Andromeda; the story of the prophet 
Jonah; the miracle of the Temple gates of Nicanor 
(see p. 62); and also the tale which underlies the 
medizval legend of St. George and the Dragon, 
localized in the neighbouring town of Ludd. 

The story of Perseus and Andromeda is one of 
the most widely-known of all the legends of 


1 F. M. Abel, Le Littoral Palestinien et ses Ports, Revue Biblique, 
1914, Pp. 583. 

2 R. A. Stewart Macalister, The Philistines, Their History and 
Civilisation, London, 1914, p. 98. 


28 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


Greece. It formed the subject of two lost tragedies 
of Sophocles and Euripides, and has been retold 
and preserved for us by Ovid in his Metamorphoses 
(IV, 622). Kepheus was king of the Ethiopians, 
and his queen was Cassiopeia. The latter having 
boasted that their daughter Andromeda’s beauty 
equalled that of the sea-born Nereids, the father of 
these goddesses, Nereus, complained to Poseidon, 
who sent upon the land an inundation and a sea- 
monster which destroyed man and beast. Enquiry 
from the oracle of Ammon elicited the reply that 
relief would not be found until Andromeda was 
fastened to a rock near the shore, as a sacrifice to 
the monster. Thus was the maiden chained to the 
rocks of Jaffa, where Perseus found her, as he was 
returning on his winged horse Pegasus from slaying 
the serpent-haired Gorgon Medusa. He killed the 
monster, set Andromeda free, married her, and took 
her with him to Tiryns in Argos, where she became 
the ancestress of the family of the Perseidae. After 
her death, Athena placed her amongst the constella- 
tions in the northern sky, near Perseus and Cas- 
siopela. Pliny (c. A.D. 23-79) reports that in his 
days the people of Jaffa would still point out the 
traces of Andromeda’s chains on the rocks to which 
she had been bound, and that, during the games 
given at Rome in the year 58 B.C. by Marcus 
Scaurus, who had been Pompey’s governor in 
Palestine, the bones of a sea-monster were shown, 
which he had brought from Jaffa, and “ which 
measured forty feet in length and were greater in 
the span of the ribs than that of the Indian elephant, 
while the backbone was a foot and a half in 


* See Kingsley’s Heroes: Perseus. 
> Pliny, -Hist,-mat., lb Vi cape (43. 


JAFFA UNDER THE PHARAOHS 29 


diameter ”’.’ Cassiopeia herself has been 
worshipped at Jaffa as late as the Hellenistic 
period; it has been suggested* that her name is 
derived from the Hebrew kesef (silver), and that by 

“the silvery one” the moon-goddess was meant. 
The Latin geographer Pomponius Mela, writing in 
about A.D. 43, mentions the existence in Jaffa of 
altars inscribed with the names of Kepheus and his 
brother Phineus.’ It may thus be said that it was 
the Philistines who laid the foundations of Hellen- 
istic culture at Jaffa. 

This fact, as well as the circumstance that the 
scene of the exploit of Perseus, in a story of Carian 
origin, became for ever localized at Jaffa points to 
a prolonged Philistine occupation of the town. The 
actual moment which saw the beginning of this 
occupation is a matter for conjecture; but it may 
be assumed as fairly probable that its beginning 
coincided with the rise of Philistine independence 
when they, as a result of the lax rule of Rameses 
III’s successors, freed themselves of the control of 
Egypt towards the end of the twelfth or the be- 
ginning of the eleventh century B.C. It also 
coincides with the time which saw two revolutions 
of the greatest importance in the culture of the 
people of Palestine: the general spread of the use 
of iron instead of bronze, and the substitution of 
the Phoenician alphabet for the cumbrous cunei- 
forms of Babylonia. 

The Philistines did not long retain their racial 
purity and character. The daily contact and inter- 
marriage with the surrounding race led them to 


+ Pliny, Hist. nat., lib. IX., cap. 
7c. R. eed Syrian Stone Ast ‘London, 1896, p. 36. 
* P. Mela, lib. I, cap. 11. 


30 THE GATEWAY, OF PALESTINE 


adopt the latter’s language, manners and religion;' 
but, whereas in the inland cities, a century or two 
sufficed to effect their almost complete semitization, 
in the sea-ports this process was strongly counter- 
acted and retarded by the sustained action of the 
/“gean influences resulting from the commercial 
relations with the Greek world. At the same time, 
however, there appears to have been a rapid falling 
off in the Philistines’ maritime prowess, with the 
result that the Phoenicians must have regained their 
one-time commercial supremacy in Jaffa and the 
other coast towns of southern Palestine. Then, as 
time went on, even the military strength, on land, 
of the Philistines began to give way under the con- 
stant attacks of the Hebrews, until the repeated 
victories of David left their power completely and 
irretrievably broken. 

As long as the Philistines were being kept 
occupied by their struggle with the Hebrews, the 
Pharaohs, troubled by civil wars and revolutions at 
home, need have no fear about the safety of their 
Asiatic frontier. But when, about the year 1000 
B.C., the power of the Philistines had at last been 
definitely destroyed, whilst a revived Assyria had 
begun again to show a desire for westward ex- 
pansion, Egypt realized that the hour had struck 
for her to make friends with the Hebrew kingdom 
and to entrust to this new power the task of pro- 
tecting her northern boundary. Accordingly, be- 
tween the two countries, an alliance was concluded, 
which was sealed, after the fashion of the time, by 
the marriage to king Solomon, of an Egyptian 
princess to whom the fortress of Gezer, conquered 


* Gaston Maspéro, The Struggle of the Nations, p. 638. 
2 Id., ibid, p. 700. 


JAFFA UNDER THE PHARAOHS 31 


by an Egyptian army, was given for dowry; at the 
same time, the Hebrew king was either placed in 
possession, or allowed the use, of the port of Ezion- 
Geber (Akabah), and probably also of Jaffa. It was 
to the latter place that Hiram, king of Tyre, had 
the cedars and firs floated which were destined for 
the construction of the Temple: . . . “ we will 
bring it to thee in floats by sea at Jaffa, and thou 
shalt carry it up to Jerusalem ’”’.” We may assume 
that this was not the only occasion on which 
Solomon made use of the port of Jaffa. It is 
probably from here that he shipped the twenty 
thousand measures of wheat and the oil and the 
wine which he sent to Hiram every year; and it 
may be taken for granted that the royal merchant, 
who was associated with the Phcenicians in his com- 
mercial expeditions to Ophir, did not neglect to 
exploit, to the fullest extent, the advantages which 
were to be derived from the possession, or use, of 
the port of Jaffa. Of the extraordinary economic 
prosperity which marked Solomon’s reign, our city 
must have profited in a considerable degree. The 
great value of the acquisition of Gezer by Solomon 
is not satisfactorily explained by its military 
importance only, since, at the time, the strength of 
the Philistines was broken, whilst the isolated 
Canaanite community which inhabited the city, cer- 
-tainly did not harbour aggressive plans against the 
Hebrew State. But Gezer dominated the road from 
Jaffa to Jerusalem; it probably interfered with the 
safety of the caravans plying between the sea-port 
and Solomon’s capital, and levied tolls on them. In 


Tar PARES ike TO. 
* 2 Chronicles ii, 15. 
ae Gn Ste: Ae ae 


ae THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


the hands of the Hebrew king, Gezer meant in- 
creased safety of commerce and increased revenues. 
That the yearly income derived from this source 
amounted to a large sum is evidenced by the very 
fact that it constituted the dowry of Pharaoh’s 
daughter; but the importance of this revenue pre- 
supposes that there was a considerable movement 
of trade going on between Jerusalem and Jaffa, and 
that Jaffa, therefore, was a busy port at the time. 

The division of the kingdom, in, or about, 950 
B.C., into two mutually hostile parts, destroyed the 
hopes which Egypt had founded on a strong 
Hebrew state as a bulwark for the protection of her 
frontier, and compelled her to re-establish her own 
rule in the Maritime Plain. The death of Solomon, 
followed within four or five years by the extinction 
of the Pharoanic dynasty with which he was related 
by marriage, furnished the Lybian mercenary 
Sheshonk, who had seized the throne in Egypt, a 
ready excuse to consider the treaty of alliance as 
having come to an end. Four years after the schism, 
he invaded Palestine and Syria and, according to 
the records inscribed by him on the south wall of 
the temple of Ammon at Karnak, he captured a 
hundred and fifty-six cities and districts. The fact 
that Jaffa is not mentioned among these may be 
taken as confirming the view that this city had 
remained under Egyptian authority even during ~ 
Solomon’s reign, although the Hebrew king was 
allowed to use it as a port of transit. 

For more than two centuries after Sheshonk’s 
campaign, Egyptian suzerainty over the Maritime 
Plain, although only weakly enforced, remained 
unchallenged, and Jaffa no doubt continued under 
Egyptian rule. 


Oe oe Wa eed A Sd 


JAFFA UNDER THE ASSYRIANS, BABYLONIANS 
AND PERSIANS (803—332 B.C.) 


About 803 B.C., the king of Assyria Hadad- 
Nirari III invaded Palestine. His Annals mention 
the Philistines among the states which he 
conquered, without giving details; but it is hardly 
to be supposed that so important a position and so 
wealthy a town as Jaffa, was spared the visit of the 
Assyrian armies, the more so as the Annals 
distinctly state that Philisita, “as far as the great 
sea of the setting sun,’ " submitted and paid tribute.’ 
However, notwithstanding this “ submission,” in 
the beginning there was no permanent Assyrian 
occupation; for the Assyrians, unlike Egypt, did 
not attempt to organize their conquests in a homo- 
geneous empire: they only raided for tribute, and 
afterwards kept the peace, so that the commerce of 
Babylonia should not suffer.’ 

About three-quarters of a century later, the 
princes of Syria and Palestine combined to attack 
the kingdom of Judah, which had become a vassal 
of Assyria; the confederation comprised Rezin of 
Damascus, Pekah of Samaria, the chiefs of the 


1 R. A. Stewart Macalister, The Philistines, Their History and 
Civilisation, p. 63. 
7H. R. Hall, The Ancient History of the Near East, 4th Edition, 
London, 1919, p. 456. 
* Ibid., p. 457. 
33 


34 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


Philistines, and the princes of Edom. Ahaz, the 
king of Judah, called on Assyria for help; Tiglath- 
Pileser III at once answered the appeal and 
appeared in Syria in 734. With the special 
purpose of sacking Gaza, he marched down the sea- 
coast to Philistia, evidently receiving the 
submission of the maritime cities on his way. 
Hanun of Gaza, the paramount chief of the 
Philistines, fled to Egypt; but he afterwards 
returned and submitted to the Assyrian rule. 
Assyrian governors were appointed in the principal 
towns; and nearly half the population was carried 
away into captivity, their place being taken by 
colonists from Babylonia and by foreign captives 
from Armenia and other conquered countries. 

In 720, two years after the destruction of Samaria 
by Shalmanezer IV, the latter’s successor Sargon 
having been defeated in battle by the Elamites, 
Hanun and his’ former confederates, over- 
estimating the effect of this reverse on the strength 
of Assyria, and being actively supported by 
Shabaka of Egypt, revolted and refused to pay 
the tribute. Sargon immediately came down upon 
Palestine, inflicted a crushing defeat on the 
Philistines and the Egyptians at Raphia (Rafah) on 
the Egyptian border, captured Hanun, destroyed 
Gaza, and compelled all the cities to resume the 
payment of the tribute. 

But in 715 B.C) Shabaka’ stirred) up a snew + 
intrigue and induced Azuri, the Philistine king of 
Ashdod, to revolt. Sargon again overran the 
country and forced it into submission. 

In 701, no doubt once more under the inspiration 
of Egypt, the king of Sidon revolted and imposed 
his authority over all Phoenicia, whilst Judah under 


JAFFA UNDER THE ASSYRIANS 35 


Hezekiah, and the Philistines under the leadership 
of Zidka king of Ashkelon, joined in the rebellion. 
Sennacherib, who had succeeded his father Sargon 
on the throne of Assyria, took the road with an army 
of nearly 200,000 men. He marched up the 
Euphrates, then across northern Syria to the shores 
of the Mediterranean, and from here southwards 
along the coast. Phoenicia was easily subdued, 
and so were most of the towns of southern Palestine 
which, with Ashdod at their head, surrendered with- 
out fighting. Only a few of them resisted fiercely; 
but, one after the other, they were besieged, taken 
and plundered: “In the course of my expedition, 
I besieged 4et-Daganna (Beth Dagon), /appu 
(Jaffa), Banai-Barka (Benei-Berak), Azuri (Yazur), 
the towns of Zidka, which had not promptly 
submitted to me; I plundered them and dragged 
booty away from them.” Then he took to the 
mountains of Judah, destroyed “ forty-six walled 
towns and their villages ” and carried away 200,000 
inhabitants. He accepted from Hezekiah 300 
talents of silver and 30 talents of gold, as the price 
for leaving Jerusalem unmolested; but, shortly 
afterwards, whilst engaged in besieging Lachish in 
preparation of an attack on Egypt, he thought that 
it was better not to leave in his rear, unsubdued, 
a fortress like Jerusalem, and he sent a strong 
detachment under his three principal generals to 
call on Hezekiah to surrender. Tirhaka of Egypt 
advanced to the relief of Jerusalem; but, whilst 
Sennacherib was preparing himself to meet this 
new opponent, a plague broke out in the Assyrian 
camp, destroying 185,000 men, whereupon Senna- 


+ Inscription of Sennacherib on the hexagonal clay prism known 
as the *“‘ Taylor Cylinder,’’ in the British Museum. 


36 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


cherib hurried home with the remnants of his force.’ 
Sennacherib’s inscription informs us clearly that, 
about the year 700 B.C., Jaffa and the neighbouring 
places of Benei- Berak, Yazur, and Beth-Dagon 
were Philistine cities and belonged to Zidka, king 
of Ashkelon. But as the name of this chief shows, 
the Philistines themselves were eae strongly 
semiticized. 

Under Sennacherib’s successors, Palestine, and 
Jaffa with it, continued to be subject to Assyria. 

The last great Assyrian monarch Ashurbanipal 
died in 626, leaving his empire exhausted by his 
many wars, and unable to resist the separatist 
tendencies of the subject nations who, one after 
the other, revolted and gained their independence. 

Between 628 and 626 B.C., the barbarian Scyths 
poured over Western Syria in resistless swarms, 
penetrating into Palestine and ravaging the 
maritime plain down to the borders of Egypt; the 
terror which they inspired is well echoed by 
Jeremiah: “they lay hold on bow and spear, they 
are cruel and have no mercy, their voice roareth 
like the sea and they ride on horses.”* When the 
Scyths had withdrawn, after having thoroughly 
impoverished and weakened the western and 
northern parts of the Assyrian empire, Babylonia 
declared her independence, and Nabopolassar 
established there aseparate monarchyin 609. Atthe 
same time the Medes threatened the northern 
frontier of Assyria. This was the moment Pharaoh 
Necho chose for an attempt to re-establish Egypt’s 
power in Asia. Crossing the frontier in 608 and 
marching north by the Way of the Sea, he easily 


* II Kings xviii, 17-37. II Kings xix. 
2 Jeremiah vi, 23. 


JAFFA UNDER THE ASSYRIANS 37 


destroyed at Megiddo Assyria’s faithful vassal Josiah 
of Judah who had tried to arrest his progress, and 
seized the whole of Palestine and Syria. But the 
Babylonian empire which, after the fall of Nineveh, 
in 606, had stepped into the inheritance of Assyria, 
now put forward its claims to the countries of the 
Mediterranean coast. In 604, at the battle of 
Carchemish on the Euphrates, Necho was defeated 
by Nabopolassar’s energetic son Nebuchadrezzar. 
The Egyptian army fled back to the Nile, closely 
pursued by.) the” victor: After | four years) of 
Egyptian overlordship, Palestine now saw itself 
placed under Babylonian rule. 

Even now Egypt did not take her defeat as final. 
The Pharaoh Uahabra (the Hophra of the Bible 
and Apries of the Greeks) occupied the Maritime 
Plain of Palestine and Phoenicia in 589; and, 
instigated by him, Zedekiah of Judah, revolted 
against Babylonia. Nebuchadrezzar answered the 
double challenge; in 587, he overran the country, 
and whilst Apries retreated hurriedly into Egypt, 
Palestine was re-conquered and Zedekiah and a 
large part of the Jewish nation were carried into 
captivity to Babylonia. 

In 538 B.C., Babylon was captured by Cyrus, and 
the whole Babylonian empire passed under the rule 
of the Persians. Tyre and Sidon accepted the new 
allegiance without difficulty; we may take it that 
the other coast towns, including Jaffa, acted 
similarly, the more so as the Pharaoh Amasis, an 
old and not very warlike man, made no attempt to 
dispute with Cyrus the Babylonian inheritance. In 
536, Cyrus gave the Jews permission to return to 
their homeland and to rebuild the city and Temple 

* Hall, op. cit., p. 560. 

D 


38 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


of Jerusalem, for which purpose they were 
authorized to cut timber in the cedar forests of 
Lebanon. “ They gave . . . meat, and drink, 
and oil, unto the Sidonians and unto the Tyrians, 
to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea at 
Jaffa, according to the grant that they had of Cyrus, 
king of Persia.’ 

In 525, Jaffa witnessed a sight the like it had not 
seen since the days of the Philistine and Zakkalah 
invasion: Cyrus’s son and successor, Cambyses, 
marched along the Palestine coast to Egypt, his 
army being supported by the combined fleets 
of Phoenicia, Cyprus, Ionia, and Eolis,’ which were 
slowly sailing southward, keeping pace with the 
land forces, and, no doubt calling at Jaffa on their 
way. Egypt was powerless before this double 
attack from the land and from the sea, and was 
easily conquered. 

The Phoenicians, thanks to their navy, had given 
Persia the mastery of the seas; to gain their 
permanent loyalty a heavy price deserved to be 
paid, and, accordingly, every favour was showered 
on them. It is well-known that what had originally 
driven the Phoenicians to take to the life of the sea, 
was the poverty of their country in arable lands and 
her consequent inability to produce sufficient grain 
to feed her population; it was for wheat and oil and 
wine that Phoenicia sold her timber to Solomon and 
Ezra, and for the enormous sum of 120 talents of 
gold, Hiram of Tyre had bought from Solomon a 
large tract of land around the village of Cabul, in 
the fertile plain of Acco.’ To attach the Phoenicians 

: Ce athe cling: The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient 


World, London, 1867, Vol. IV, p. 385. 
> I Kings ix, 11-14. 


JAFFA UNDER THE ASSYRIANS 39 


to the Persian empire by strong bonds of gratitude 
and interest, nothing was better calculated than to 
satisfy their desire for new arable land. An 
inscription engraved on the sarcophagus of a king, 
FEshmunazar of Sidon, unearthed there 1 in 1855, and 
dating probably from about 4oo B.C., records that 
the “Lord of Kings ¥ (a title commonly used of 
the Persian monarchs) placed the Sidonians in 
possession of the plain of Sharon with the two cities 
of Dor (Tanturah) and Jaffa at its northern and 
southern end: “... The Lord of kings gave to 
us Dor and Yafah, the glorious corn-lands which 
are in the fields of Sharon, in accordance with the 
great things which I did; and we added them to the 
borders of the land, that they might belong to the 
Sidonians for ever.’” 

It is, no doubt, to this period of Sidonian over- 
lordship over the city, that we must ascribe the 
building at Jaffa, by one Ben Abdas, of a temple in 
honour of the chief Phoenician deity, Eshmun, as 
is recorded in a Phoenician inscription on a stone 
discovered at Jaffa in 1892... The figure 4 shows 
the text and its transcription into Hebrew 
characters, and the following is the translation 
proposed by Conder, who says that the character of 
the writing appears to be of the fourth or third 
Century bi 3: 

Line 1.—A worshipper, the son of a worshipper, 

has very firmly founded the temple of Joppa, 
being prospered by Eshmun; (being) there 


2 Gustav H6lscher, Paldstina in der persischen und hellenistischen 
Zeit, Berlin, 1903, p. 15. 

2 P. S. Handcock, The Latest Light on Bible Lands, London, 1913, 
pp. 280-281. 

°C. R. Conder, The Prayer of Ben Abdas on the Dedication of the 
Temple of Joppa, P.E.F.Q.S., 1892, p. 171 ff 


40 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


Lord-Ben Abdas. Thou wilt hear with 
acceptance, and thou wilt save Ben Abdas 
—a servant for ever, Abd-Eshmun.’ 

LinE 2.—A sinner towards Baal, he returns 
drawing back. Thou shalt protect the 
worshipper as a son, O my Baal. Have 
mercy on me, O Baal Gad, (who am) the son 
of Abd-Eshmun, a faithful servant, the son 
of Abd-Abset. The wanderer having rested 
—the son of Abd-Eshmun—cut a stone. 

LinE 3.—He carved an inscription. Have 
mercy, O Lord, on a servant, and save the 
son of Abd-Eshmun. . . And he erected 
a high place (as) an obedient worshipper. 

Whether Ben-Abdas’ father Abd-Eshmun was in 
any way related to the king Eshmunazar to whom 
Jaffa was given by a king of Persia, we may never 
be able to say; the only thing we can say is that, if 
a Phoenician governor of Jaffa built there a temple 
to the principal god of Phoenicia, this event must 
probably have taken place immediately after the 
establishment of Phoenician suzerainty over the 
city. The inscription is evidence of the worship, at 
Jaffa, not only of Eshmun, but also of the lesser 
Phoenician deity of Baal Gad, and of the Egyptian 


* Conder, having read ‘‘ the wandered having rested ’’ (line 2), 
concludes that either a journey for colonization was intended, or that 
the worshipper was a merchant whose travels were over, as he had 
become rich, and now desired to propitiate the gods. I think that the 
identity of Ben Abdas is clearly stated in the first line, where is is said 
that the temple was founded at Jaffa ‘‘ being there Lord Ben Abdas,”’ 
that is to say, when Ben Abdas was the chief, probably the Phoenician 
governor, of the town. It would have been surprising indeed that the 
donor of so important a monument should have omitted to describe his 
own social status. 

? Conder translates Abd Eshmun (servant of Ashmun); I prefer to 
keep the original Abd untranslated, as Abd-Eshmun evidently is a com- 
mon theophoric name. The same remark applies to the name Abd- 
Abset, in line 2. 


Al 


JAFFA UNDER THE ASSYRIANS 


WRU tee ul ttc, ch AtLN Fagg ctl aeeNmal com uch cam ace cal 


ack xtaur acer cl wee cl acosaat ce ac! 
Weuan acdc, wich way ace ual cl ChQe ute faq ches cl dcunmal ace xa! cl 





umaak trmad umqa ch dcana den ugul ace aaal sss) atheessQ wc 
pera wc aul ot aucer, wak dcum oth acum acl al Nach ac aya cl acuna 
HbwH Vbwy Hh Gol GY C662 WHY 6 C6bQ HAL ~-bog ELEL OMX o6b VEL 
6b AE hol mOu heb SoU wh OCVREL 
Hon y, 604, WAKO wed C6bUAWwh Ch Gol we Lt, Goh wer ChoVbxminh ood Ril ot 
Ati fo 6hun fho dnd fs CL Eb Rh, o6b Hinoh O62 min Te: O%. obb “+ hk 4464 


Qinh 6 med vobby wn 060K SL OGD?Q Wh Rutnl mmole 6b 06072 


‘(azagods V Koud) WAIVE AVAN CANOAOA NOWdIMOSNI NVIOINDING 


FIGURE 4 


By courtesy 4h the 
Palestine Exploration Fund 


42 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


goddess Bast; it also shows that the temple referred 
to comprised a bamah or “ high place” enclosed in 
an arcah or “ temple court.” 

The Sidonian suzerainty over Jaffa was not 
destined to last very long; indeed, in the Periplus 
ascribed to the Greek historian Scylax of Cary- 
andra, but dating in reality from about 350 B.C., 
Jatta is represented as independent of the great 
cities in the north.” It is safe to assume that the 
cessation of the Phoenician overlordship over Jaffa 
dates from the destruction of Sidon in 351 Egypt 
having, in 406 or 405, thrown off the Persian yoke, 
the Phoenician cities, headed by Sidon, had on two 
occasions sided with Egypt and denounced their 
allegiance to Persia. The first time, in 362, the 
movement collapsed in consequence of the 
defection of the Pharaoh; but in 351, the Sidonians, 
together with a corps of Greek mercenaries sent 
from Egypt, defeated a Persian army. Thereupon 
the king of Persia, Artaxerxes Ochus, laid siege to 
Sidon, when the inhabitants, finding that their main 
defences had been betrayed into the enemy’s hand 
by their own king, set fire to their houses and burnt 
the city to the ground.” The Sidonian state was 
broken up, and it 1s, no doubt, at this moment that 
Jaffa was again detached from it and returned to 


* Conder translates the words 7AIN' bynw NOM by ‘‘ a sinner 
towards Baal, he returns back.’’ I believe that in j21n9 by we 
have the Phoenician equivalent of the Hebrew MAIWN by3 Baby- 
lonian Talmud, Succ. 53a), the accepted term for a ‘‘ penitent, 
one sorry for sin.’’ The correct meaning would thus be ‘‘ a sinner, who 
is (now) a penitent.’’ This gives additional interest to Conder’s remark 
that ‘‘ the writer appears to rely on the piety of his father, rather than 
on his own, as he had been a sinner, or, perhaps, a worshipper of other 
gods.”’ 

? F. M. Abel, Le Littoral Palestinien et ses Ports, in Revue Biblique, 
1914, p. 580. 

* George Rawlinson, Phenicia, pp. 205-209. 


JAFFA UNDER THE ASSYRIANS 43 


the direct administration of Persia. Egypt, too, 
was conquered by Ochus, and for 16 years Jaffa 
together with all Palestine enjoyed a period of 
perfect peace. 


ORUA Pat RID 


JAFFA UNDER THE GREEKS AND THE JEWS 
(332—66 B.C.) 


In 332 B.C., Alexander the Macedonian 
conquered Palestine; as Tyre fell in August, and 
Gaza after a two months’ siege in November,’ Jaffa, 
which is not recorded as having offered any 
resistance, must have been occupied in September, 
probably by the fleet commanded by Hephestion, 
whom Alexander had ordered to follow him from 
Tyre southwards along the coast.’ Alexander, in 
his campaigns, was not moved only by the lust for 
adventure; he was also inspired with the ambition 
to benefit the world by the dissemination of Greek 
art and culture. At Jaffa, the previous trade 
relations with the A‘gean islands and Greece, as 
well as the influence of the Philistines, had 
prepared the ground for the favourable acceptance 
of the Macedonian régime and its hellenizing 
policy, for the support of both of which a consider- 
able number of Greek colonists were settled in and 
around the town. The name of Yapho was now 
changed to Joppe, and was made to derive from 
that of Jope, a daughter of A*olus, the god of 


* Graetz, Volkstiimliche Geschichte der \Juden, 1888, Vol. I., p. 341. 
* Quintus Curtius Rufus: De Rebusgestis Alexandri Magni, lib. IV, 
cap. 5. 
* Charles Foster Kent: Biblical Geography and History, London, 
IgiI, p. 208. 


44 


UNDER THE GREEKS AND JEWS 45 


winds, and the wife of Kepheus, who built the city, 
and was its first ruler.’ 

It was Alexander who established the first mint 
at Jaffa; for no earlier coins are known to have been 
struck there than those issued during his reign. In 
the collections of Vienna, Berlin, Paris, and Copen- 
hagen, there are silver tetradrachms of Alexander, 


bearing theinitials [OJ] ,° whilst on a coin belong- 


ing to the British Museum, the name of Joppa is 


represented by the monogram {fe . It was the 


Jaffa mint that supplied Jerusalem and southern 
Palestine generally, with money. 

After Alexander’s death in 323, his generals 
immediately began to fight each other over the 
division of the empire, and, in these struggles, Jaffa 
became one of the chief objects of contention. As 
the result of a first successful battle, Ptolemy I 
Lagi, who had established himself in Egypt, 
occupied Palestine in 318, and put a garrison into 
Jaffa. In 315, his rival, Antigonus, besieged the 
town, captured it, incorporated its garrison by force 
into his own army, and put a garrison of his own in 
its place.” Three years later this general’s son 
Demetrios was defeated near Gaza, and Ptolemy 
re-occupied the country; but, after a few months, 
E. Schiirrer: Geschichte des Jiidischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christt, 
Leipzig, 1901, Vol. II, p. 55. 

? Frederic M. Madden, History of the Jewish Coinage and the Money 
in the Old and New Testament, London, 1864, p. 23. 

* George Francis Hill, Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Palestine 
(in the British Museum), London, 1914, p. xxiv. 
* Diodorus XIX, 58-59, quoted by Schiirer, op. cit., p. 129, and by 


B. Niese, Geschichte der Griechischen und Makedonischen Staaten, 
Gotha, 1893, Vol. I, p. 276. 


46 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


Antigonus’ army having joined that of Demetrios, 
Ptolemy, in doubt as to his power to resist them, 
withdrew to Egypt, razing during his retreat the 
fortifications of Jerusalem and the maritime cities, 
including Jaffa.” The fate of Palestine remained 
undecided until 301 B.C., when at Ipsos, in Asia 
Minor, the allied generals Ptolemy, Lysimachos, 
Cassander, and Seleukos defeated Antigonus, who 
was killed during the battle. The four victorious 
generals now divided the empire amongst them- 
selves, Ptolemy receiving Egypt and the neigh- 
bouring countries, and Seleukos almost the whole 
remaining part of the empire in Asia, including 
Mesopotamia and Persia unto the frontiers of 
India. Jaffa once again became subject to Egypt, 
under whose strong rule peace prevailed upon land 
and on sea, and an era of great prosperity set in 
for the country and especially for the maritime 
cities. The Ptolemies continued Alexander’s 
policy of Hellenization, greatly aided in this by the 
grant, to the towns, of a very wide measure of self- 
government on the lines of the Greek polis, the 
effect of which was greatly to weaken, if not to 
destroy, the bonds of common interest between the 
inhabitants of the cities concerned and _ their 
kinsmen around them. Thus the last vestiges of 
the Phoenician and_ semiticized Philistine 
civilizations disappeared, and Jaffa became one of 
the strongholds of Hellenism in Palestine. But 
apart from the knowledge that coins were struck 
there bearing the monogram of the town and dates 
of the reigns of Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III, we 
possess no details as to the history of Jaffa during 


? Diordus XIX, 93, quoted by Schiirer, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 129; see 
also Graetz, Volkstiimliche Geschichte der Juden, Vol. I, p. 345. 


UNDER THE GREEKS AND JEWS 47 


the Ptolemaic period. The coins in question were 
all issued during a period of twenty years, from the 
year 25 of Ptolemy II (261 B.C.) to the year 6 of 
Ptolemy III (241 B.C.). The name of Joppa is 


usually represented by the monogram IT) , but 


on one coin it takes the form of lon sneDOIMerOL 
the coins of Ptolemy II are of bronze, and bear the 
image of a harp, but no mint-name; these coins 
have nevertheless been attributed to Jaffa, the harp 
being looked upon as a symbol of the cult of 
Perseus.’ 

After about a century of uninterrupted rule, the 
Ptolemies saw their position in Palestine challenged 
again by the descendants of Seleukos. Antiochus 
III, the Great (223-187) invaded Palestine in 218, 
and occupied the maritime plain as far as Gaza; he 
was beaten by Ptolemy at Rafah in the winter 218- 
217, and forced to evacuate the country. But, 
twenty years later, he renewed his attempt, and this 
time he was more successful; having completely 
routed the Egyptian army in a battle near Paneion 
(the modern Banias) at the foot of Mount Hermon, 
he definitely annexed Palestine to the Seleucid 
kingdom. His successor was Seleukos_ IV, 
Philopator (187-176), who in turn was succeeded by 
Antiochus IV, Epiphanes (176-164), the monarch 
whose cruelty and anti-Jewish fanaticism brought 
about the revolt of the Maccabees and the establish- 
ment of Jewish independence. He was a great 
lover of Greek culture, and used every means to 
spread it throughout his dominions. His ruthless 


DATs TAN Ope CE, (PscXIV; 


48 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


attempts to force it upon the Jews among whom 
there was one party favourably disposed towards 
it, whilst the other—the majority—fiercely resisted 
it, led to violent strife between the two sections. 
Returning by sea from an expedition to Egypt, he 
determined to punish the anti-Greek Jews; he 
landed at Jaffa where, as the champion of 
Hellenism, he was sure to be welcome, and 
marched to Jerusalem, plundered the Temple, and 
slew many inhabitants. Soon after, he set out 
systematically to suppress the Jewish religion, and, 
in 168 B.C. he sent one of his generals, Apollonius, 
to enforce the worship of the Olympian Zeus and 
to put to death all those who persisted in remaining 
true to the Jewish faith. In December, 168, 
sacrifices to Zeus were offered in the Temple upon 
a heathen altar erected over the great altar of burnt- 
offerings. This provocation proved too much even 
for many of the Hellenizers, and when an edict 
was issued, ordering the erection of heathen altars 
in every town of Palestine, and appointing officers 
to punish those who would disobey the edict, the 
revolt broke out under the leadership of Mattathias, 
an aged priest of Modein (Khurbet Midieh), and 
his five sons. In 166, Mattathias died, having 
committed to his sons the task of continuing the 
struggle and appointing one of them, Judas, 
surnamed Maccabeus (from the Hebrew makkebeth 
—the hammer) as leader in the holy war. 

In a series of brilliant engagements following 
closely upon each other, Judas overthrew the Syrian 
generals, Appollonius, Seron, Gorgias, and the 
regent, Lysias, and restored the temple-worship in 
165; three years later, Lysias had to guarantee their 
religious freedom to the Jews. 


UNDER THE GREEKS AND JEWS 49 


The Jews of Jaffa, who were few in numbers 
among a big majority of hellenized heathens and of 
Greeks, had not taken part in the revolt. Never- 
theless, the other inhabitants of the town 
determined to vent on them the spite they felt at 
the sight of the triumph of Judas Maccabeus and 
his followers. On the occasion of some popular 
festival, “the men of Joppa prayed the Jews that 
dwelt among them to go, with their wives and 
children, into the boats which they had prepared, 
as though they had meant no hurt; but when they 
were gone forth into the deep, they drowned no less 
than two hundred of them.” Judas, on hearing of 
this atrocity, came down upon Jaffa with his army. 
The city was then surrounded by walls, but these 
did not extend to the shore, and the harbour was, 
therefore, situated outside the defences. Finding 
the gates of the city closed and the walls too strong 
to be taken by assault, Judas contended himself 
with raiding the harbour, inflicting heavy damage 
on the commerce of the town; he “ burned the 
haven by night, and set the boats on fire, and those 
that flew hither he slew.’” 

The achievement of religious freedom could not 
now satisfy any more the intense nationalist spirit 
which the military successes of the Jews had 
revived; it now became clear that the struggle 
would not cease as long as they had not gained 
political independence. In 161 Judas defeated 
the Syrian general Nicanor at Adasa (Khurbet 
Adaseh), about five miles north of Jerusalem; but 
a few weeks later, accepting battle with only eight 
hundred men against a new and numerous Syrian 


1 II Maccabees, xii, 3, 4. 
? II Maccabees, xii, 5, 6. 


50 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


army under Bacchides at Eleasa (Khurbet /lasa), 
half-way between Ludd and Jerusalem, he was 
killed, and his small army routed. 

Fle was succeeded, in the leadership of the 
rebellion, by his brother Jonathan, who, if not so 
brilliant a soldier, was a clever politician who knew 
how to exploit the internal troubles which were 
agitating the Syrian kingdom since the death of 
Antiochus the Great. In 162, Demetrios I Soter 
had succeeded Antiochus V Eupator (164-162) on 
the throne. A young man from Smyrna, 
Alexander Balas, of low birth, but with a remark- 
able resemblance to Antiochus Eupator, announced 
himself as a son of Antiochus Epiphanes, and laid 
claim to the throne. Rome and Egypt having 
recognized him, he landed at Acco, to begin the 
struggle for the possession of the kingdom. In 
order to win the support of the Jews, Alexander 
gave Jonathan, in 153 B.C., the title of high priest 
with the right to wear a golden crown, and the 
control, not only over Judea, but also of the 
maritime plain and the coast; it now remained only 
for Jonathan to make these concessions valid by 
actual occupation. Demetrios II Nicator, having 
followed Demetrios I Soter, on the throne in 
150 B.C., his general Apollonius Daos occupied the 
maritime region in 148 and, having taken up his 
position at Yamnia (Yedbueh), sent Jonathan a 
pompous challenge to meet him in the plain. 
Jonathan accepted the challenge, and, together with 
his brother Simon, he came down from Jerusalem 
and began by laying siege to Jaffa which was 
Apollonius’ principal base of operations. The 
people of Jaffa, heartened by the presence of a 
Syrian garrison, first refused to surrender, and shut 


UNDER THE GREEKS AND JEWS st 


their gates; but, when they saw Jonathan actually 
preparing himself to storm the walls, they were 
frightened and opened the gates to him. 
Apollonius, on receiving the news that Jaffa had 
capitulated, appeared before the town at the head 
of a force of cavalry and infantry, with the intention 
of drawing Jonathan out into the open plain, where 
his cavalry, with the help of another body of horse 
placed in ambush in a position from which they 
could attack the Jews in the rear, would be able to 
deal effectually with Jonathan’s force which con- 
sisted only of infantry. The Jewish leader first 
seems to have walked into the trap, but, when he 
saw himself attacked on both sides, he formed his 
troops into a square and contented himself with 
remaining on the defensive. Towards the end of 
the day, however, as the enemy had become 
exhausted by their repeated and fruitless efforts 
to break through his lines, Jonathan counter- 
attacked and completely routed the Syrians. 

In 145, Ptolemy VI Philometer, came up from 
Egypt with a large army and fleet, marching and 
sailing north along the coast. Alexander Balas 
had ordered all the towns to give Ptolemy, who was 
his father-in-law, the best welcome; the latter, 
accordingly, entered without opposition all the 
fortified cities of the coast, but took care to leave 
his own garrisons in each of them. Having in this 
manner occupied Jaffa, he there received the visit 
of Jonathan who came down in great pomp from 
Jerusalem. The chronicler records that they spent 
a night at Jaffa, and that they left on the next day 
and proceeded together until the river Eleutherus 


* I Maccabees X, 69-76; also Josephus, Antiquities XIII, ch iv, 4. 


52 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


(the modern Nahr-el-Kebir) in northen Syria.’ 
Here they parted, Jonathan returning home to 
Jerusalem, having received from the king “hand- 
some presents and all marks of honour.” Once 
all the coastal fortresses were in his possession and 
manned by his own garrisons, Ptolemy turned 
against his son-in-law, attacked him near Antioch, 
and defeated him; but during the battle Ptolemy 
himself was mortally wounded, and died a few days 
later. Alexander Balas fled to Arabia and was 
there murdered; Demetrius II became king in his 
stead, and the Egyptian garrisons of the maritime 
cities were once more replaced by those of Syria. 

Shortly afterwards one Tryphon, acting as 
regent for Antiochus, a son of Alexander Balas, 
appeared in Syria and won Jonathan’s allegiance 
by granting him control of the whole coast, from 
Wyre to) theo Boyptian ) frontiers): in yaya ton 
receiving the news that the inhabitants of Jaffa, 
unwilling to accept his rule, conspired to deliver 
the town to the generals of Demetrius II, Jonathan 
sent his brother Simon, who occupied the town on 
behalf of Tryphon and placed a strong garrison in 
it. But the following year, Tryphon having 
treacherously murdered Jonathan who was staying 
with him at Acco as his guest, Simon denounced 
his allegiance to Tryphon, and annexed Jaffa 
definitely as part of the Jewish state; he rebuilt and 
strengthened the fortfications of the city, carried 
out extensive improvements in the harbour, and 
compelled its Greek inhabitants to emigrate,’ “ for 

* I Maccabees xi, 1-6. 

* Josephus, Antiquities oe Chi ives, 

* I Maccabees xii, 33, 3 

4 James Stevenson Rigoe, ‘A History of the Jewish People during the 


Maccabean and Roman Periods, London, 1913, p. 89. 
° I Maccabees xiii, 11; also Josephus, Antiquities XIII, ch. vi, 4. 


UNDER THE GREEKS AND JEWS 53 


he was afraid that they would deliver up the city to 
Tryphon.” Thus was Jaffa forcibly converted into 
a Jewish town, and remained so for two centuries, 
until the destruction of the Jewish state by the 
Romans. ‘Together with Jaffa, Simon captured 
Gezer, which he also fortified, and from which he 
was enabled to ensure the safety of the trade route 
between Jerusalem and the coast. This easy and 
safe connection with the sea, and the possession of 
the harbour and fortress of Jaffa, gave the Jews 
access to the western world: “and, in addition to 
all his other glory, he (Simon) took Joppa for an 
haven, and made an entrance to the isles of the 
sea.” It also furnished the Jewish state with a 
very important source of revenue, for the import 
and export duties which had been instituted by the 
Syrian kings, were henceforth levied for the 
benefit of the Jewish treasury.’ The exultation of 
the Jews over this acquisition was, therefore, quite 
justified; the great value which they attributed to 
it may be estimated from the fact that, when Simon 
erected at Modein his famous monument to the 
memory of his heroic father and of his brothers 
who had fallen for the cause of freedom, he had 
the effigies of ships carved into the high columns 
by which the monument was surrounded.’ 

The Syrian king Antiochus VII, Sidetes (164- 
129) was not disposed to acquiesce, without 
adequate compensation, in the loss of the revenue 
from Jaffa and Gezer. In 139, he sent one of his 
nobles, Athenobius, to Simon with the following 
message : “ Ye withhold Joppe and Gazara (Gezer), 


* I Maccabees xiv, 5. ; 
? Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, 1905, Vol. III, i, p. 55. 
°* I Maccabees xiii, 27-30. 


54 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


with the tower that is in Jerusalem, which are cities 
of my realm. Now, therefore, deliver the cities 
which you have taken, and the tributes of the 
places, or else give me for them five hundred 
talents of silver: and for the harm that ye have 
done and the tribute of the cities, other five hundred 
talents; if not, we will come and fight against you.” 
Simon refused to agree to these demands, but 
offered to send one hundred talents for the cities of 
Jaffa and Gezer. Antiochus at once sent his 
general Kendebaios with a large army into Judea; 
they were put to flight by Simon’s sons, Judas and 
John, in the plains south-east of Jaffa, and about 
1,000 Syrians were killed.’ 

In 135, Simon was murdered by one of his sons- 
in-law, and was succeeded by John Hyrcanus (135- 
106). The following year, Antiochus Sidetes, 
anxious to avenge the defeat of Kendebaios and to 
recover at the same time the lost revenues, invaded 
Judea, captured Jaffa and Gezer, and besieged 
Jerusalem. John Hyrcanus had to pay a heavy 
ransom for his capital and was also forced to agree 
to the payment of a yearly tribute for the possession 
of Jaffa and Gezer;’ the payment of this tribute 
was, however, discontinued after a few years with 
the consent of Antiochus, who intended to invade 
Parthia and bought Hyrcanus’ support by 
recognizing his independence. 

But, in 113, the then king of Syria, Antiochus 
IX, Kyzikenos, invaded Judea, seized Jaffa and 
Gezer, and levied, for his own account, the duties 
on goods passing through these towns. John 


* I Maccabees xv, 28, 30, 31. 
2 I Maccabees xvi, 1-10. 
* Josephus, Antiquities XIII, ch. ix, 3. 


UNDER THE GREEKS AND JEWS 55 


Hyrcanus appealed to Rome and sent thither 
a deputation to lodge a complaint with the Senate 
against the Syrian king. The Romans, who had 
already for some time been watching developments 
in Syria, and were waiting for a pretext to interfere 
there, received the deputation well. The Senate, 
having listened to their complaints and wishes, 
passed a decree to the effect that Antiochus 
‘should do no injury to the Jews, the allies of the 
Romans; and that the fortresses and havens and 
territory, and whatever else he had taken from 
them, should be restored; and that it should be 
lawful for them to export their goods out of their 
own havens: and that no king or people should 
have leave to export any goods either from 
the country of Judea or from their havens, without 
paying customs, except Ptolemy, the king of 
Alexandria, because he is our ally and friend; and 
that according to their desire, the garrison that was 
in Joppa should be expelled.” The word of Rome 
was obeyed, and the Syrian garrison evacuated 
Jaffa, which returned under the rule of Hyrcanus. 
His successor, Alexander Jannaeus (106-78), 
who, in 104, assumed the title of king, continued 
to enjoy the undisputed possession of Jaffa; 
certain of the coins struck by him bear the image of 
a ship’s anchor, a symbol of Judea’s maritime 
power. During his reign, Antiochus XII 
Dionysios, on his way to carry war into Arabia, 
appeared in northern Palestine showing intentions 
to march south through the maritime plain. 
Alexander Jannaeus, fearing the ravages of 
Antiochus’ army if allowed to pass through his 





* Josephus, Antiquities XIV, ch. x, 22. 
*» Madden, op. cit., pp. 66-67. 


56 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


territory, “dug a deep trench from Chebarzaba 
(Kefar Saba), which is now called Antipatris, to 
the sea near Joppa, where alone an army could be 
brought against him. He also raised a wall one 
hundred and fifty furlongs in length, and erected 
on it wooden towers and curtains, and waited for the 
coming of Antiochus, who burnt all those works, 
and made his army pass by that way into Arabia.” 
Alexander’s wife Alexandra, who succeeded him, 
also impressed the image of the anchor on her coins, 
a fact which shows that she continued in the 
unchallenged possession of the port of Jaffa.’ 


1 Josephus, Antiquities XIII, ch. xv, 1. 
2 Madden, op. cit., p. 72. 


CHART ERey, 


JAFFA UNDER THE ROMANS AND THE 
BYZANTINES (66 B.C.—A.D. 636) 


In 66 B.C., Rome, which had already conquered 
Egypt and a part of Asia Minor, determined to 
extend her boundaries in the East and sent Pompey 
to subdue the kingdoms of Pontus and Armenia. 
When he had accomplished this mission, he 
advanced southward, annexed Syria, and occupied 
Damascus. Here he was called upon to act as 
arbitrator between Alexander Jannaeus’ sons, 
Aristobulos and Hyrcanus, who had been set up as 
rival claimants to the throne of Judea by the two 
warring parties of the Sadducees and Pharisees. 
Pompey. reserved his decision until he would arrive 
at Jerusalem. He entered Palestine with his army, 
made Aristobulos a _ prisoner, and_ besieged 
Jerusalem where the latter’s followers entrenched 
themselves on the Temple hill. Aided by 
Hyrcanus and by the latter’s chief supporter 
Antipater, governor of Idumea, Pompey took the 
city. Hyrcanus was confirmed in the position of 
high priest, but without political power, whilst 
Aristobulos was carried away to Rome to walk as a 
captive behind Pompey’s chariot in his triumphal 
procession. Judea was deprived of the conquests 
made by the Maccabees, and, together with Galilee 
and Idumea, was constituted into a sub-province of 

57 


58 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


the Roman Empire. The coastal region was 
separated from the rest of the country; Jaffa as well 
as the other Hellenized cities were declared to be 
“free towns,” with a wide measure of self-govern- 
ment, and were formed into a second sub-province 
which was called Phoenicia. Of this autonomous 
Jaffa, coins have been found bearing the image of 
Andromeda, with veiled face, seated on a rock and 
lifting her hands up to heaven in an attitude of 
supplication (fig. 5), sometimes also bearing in 





FIGURE 6? 


addition the representation of a galley, and the 


monogram ion (ig. 6). The two sub-provinces 


were attached again to the province of Syria, and 
were placed under the administration of one 
Marcus Scaurus,’ the same who, according to Pliny, 
in the course of the games which were given at 


* F. de Saulcy, Numismatique de la Terre Sainte, Paris, 1874, 
Plate IX, No. 3. 

* F. de Saulcy, Numismatique de la Terre Sainte, Paris, 1874, 
Plate IX, No. 4. 

* Josephus, Jewish War, I, ch. 7, 7. 


UNDER THE ROMANS AND BYZANTINES © 59 


Rome in 58 B.C., exhibited there the bones of 
Andromeda’s sea-monster, which he had brought 
from Jaffa (see page 28). 

When Pompey was defeated by Julius Cesar at 
the battle of Pharsalia in 49 B.C., Antipater, who 
had become the strong man of Judea, allied himself 
with the cause of the victor, and gave him valuable 
military and political assistance at the most critical 
time of his Egyptian campaign. Czesar never forgot 
these services; and, when hehad returned to Rome as 
Consul, he issued in 47 B.C. a decree by which, in 
addition to various other benefits conferred upon 
them, Jaffa was restored to the Jews, and Antipater 
was made procurator of Judea. “ Caius Cesar, 
imperator the second time, has ordained, that all 
the country of the Jews, except Joppa, pay tribute 
for the city of Jerusalem every year except the 
seventh year, which they call the sabbatical year, 
because therein they neither receive the fruit of 
their trees, nor do they sow their lands; and that 
they pay as their tribute in Sidon in the second 
year, the fourth part of what was sown: and besides 
this, they are to pay the same tithes to Hyrcanus 
and his sons, as they paid to their forefathers... . 
It is also our pleasure that the city of Joppa, which 
the Jews had originally, when they made a league 
of friendship with the Romans, shall belong to 
them, as it formerly did; and that Hyrcanus, the 
son of Alexander, and his sons, shall have as tribute 
for that city from those that occupy the land, for 
the country and for what they export every year to 
Sidon, twenty thousand six hundred and seventy- 
five modii every year, except the seventh year, 
which they call the sabbatical year, wherein they 
neither plow nor take the fruit off their trees...” 

* Josephus, Antiquities XIV, ch. x, 6. 





60 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


The plains of Palestine were then exporting large 
quantities of grain to Sidon, partly for consumption 
in the Lebanon district, but principally for ship- 
ment to Italy through the intermediary of the 
Sidonian shipping merchants; in this export of 
grain, the region of Jaffa and the plain of Sharon 
had a considerable share. At the same time, both 
Syria and Palestine had to pay to Rome yearly 
tributes in the form of grain which was to be 
delivered to the Roman tax-officials at Sidon. The 
yearly tribute to be paid by Judea was fixed by 
Ceesar at one-fourth of the quantity of grain sown 
the previous year, but no tribute was due for the 
seventh (sabbatical year), during which no crops 
were sown. Jaffa, as a special favour, was excused 
from paying either its share in the tribute to Rome 
or the customary tithe due to the high priest at 
Jerusalem; but it had to pay to Hyrcanus and his 
descendants a land tax and an export duty on all 
grain shipped to Sidon, both these taxes being 
compounded into one fixed yearly tribute of 20,675 
measures of wheat. 

Cesar was assassinated in 44 B.C., and so was 
Antipater one year later. Mark Antony, who was 
then Rome’s_ representative in the East, 
immediately appointed Antipater’s sons, Herod 
and Phasael, civic rulers in Judea. But in 40 B.C., 
Palestine was invaded by the Parthians who slew 
Phasael, and placed Antigonus, the son of 
Aristobulos, on the Judean throne. Herod, who 
had escaped to Egypt and from there to Rome, 
was given by the Senate the title of “ King of the 
Jews”; and in 39 B.C. he landed at Acco 
(Ptolemais) where he began to collect an army and 
to prepare himself for the conquest of his kingdom. 


UNDER THE ROMANS AND BYZANTINES | 61 


The Romans had already driven out the Parthians. 
Having first established his rule over Galilee, 
Herod turned his attention southward to Judea; but 
here Jaffa was in his way. The people there had 
taken the part of Aristobulos, the descendant of the 
Maccabees, and, burning with religious and national 
fervour, they were violently hostile to the 
“Tdumean slave” and Hellenizer Herod. Although 
on his way to Jerusalem Herod could have easily 
avoided Jaffa, he could not afford to leave such an 
important fortress unsubdued in his rear; he laid 
siege to the city and forced it to surrender, in 
37 B.C.’ But the people of Jaffa had bowed only to 
superior physical force, and Herod never 
succeeded in gaining their friendship. No wonder, 
therefore, that in return Herod himself showed 
little favour to Jaffa; and when, in later years, he 
decided to provide his kingdom with a large and 
properly equipped harbour, he did not hesitate to 
set up a rival to Jaffa by creating an entirely new 
port at Straton’s Tower, which he called Czsarea. 

A few months after the fall of Jaffa, Jerusalem 
was captured with the help of a Roman army under 
C. Sosius, who deposed Antigonus, and installed 
Herod in his stead as king of the Jews. 

Three years later, Antony, who was then at 
Laodicea in northern Syria, engaged in making 
preparations for a campaign against the Parthians, 
was joined there by his mistress, the famous 
Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. The latter, who was 
a bitter personal enemy of Herod, tried to persuade 
Antony to depose him and to make over to herself 
the government of Palestine. Herod succeeded in 
averting this danger; but Antony, who could not 


* Josephus, Antiquities XIV, ch. xv, 1. 


62 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


entirely deny Cleopatra, placed her in possession of 
the region of Jericho, famous for its palm-trees and 
balsams, and of all the maritime cities to the south 
of Tyre as far as Egypt, as a private source of 
revenue. Jaffa was one of these cities, and it 
remained in the possession of the Egyptian queen 
until after her fall, and that of her lover, Augustus 
gave it back to Herod in 30 B.C., together with the 
other places which Antony had torn from his 
kingdom.’ 

It is no doubt to the time under review, that we 
must ascribe the event which furnished the subject 
of the Talmudic legend of the “miracle of 
Nicanor’s doors,” of which Jaffa was said to have 
been the scene. When Herod was completing the 
building of the Temple, a certain Nicanor, a 
member of the wealthy Jewish community of 
Alexandria, presented the sanctuary with a double 
door of massive Corinthian bronze, 50 cubits high 
and 40 wide, covered with thick plates of gold and 
silver, beautifully worked. The weight of the two 
leaves of the door was such, that twenty men at 
least were required to turn them upon their hinges. 
The legend says that, as Nicanor was bringing the 
two leaves of the door from Alexandria to Palestine 
by a ship, a furious storm arose. The mariners, 
in order to relieve their vessel, threw one of the 
leaves into the sea; they were about to deal 
similarly with the second, when Nicanor made them 
desist from this purpose by crying out that if they 
threw it into the sea, they must throw him down as 
well. Shortly afterwards the storm abated, and 


* Tasephus, Antiquities XV, ch. vii, 3; also Schiirer, op. cit., Vol. II, 
p. 131. 


UNDER THE ROMANS AND BYZANTINES — 63 


the ship was able to continue her way in peace, 
whilst Nicanor did not cease to lament the loss of 
the precious half-door. But when they arrived in 
the harbour of Jaffa, behold! the lost door-leaf 
appeared from out of the waters, and the waves 
washed it ashore.’ 

On Herod’s death in 4 B.C., Augustus ratified 
his will and conferred the maritime cities of 
Czsarea and Jaffa on Herod’s son Archelaus, 
whose sovereignty over these ports is illustrated by 
the efhgy of a galley on his coins,’ whereas 
his predecessors had signified their dominion over 
Jaffa by a ship’s anchor. Archelaus’ cruelties and 
repeated violations of the Jewish laws caused the 
Jews to complain to Augustus, who at last, in 
A.D. 6 deposed him, and banished him to Gaul, 
where he died. His private property was 
confiscated, and Judea was annexed to the Roman 
province of Syria; Jaffa came thus under the 
jurisdiction of Czesarea, where the procurators in 
charge of the administration of the province had 
their headquarters. 

Some of the Jewish inhabitants of Jaffa were 
amongst the first adepts of Christianity. A 
member of the small Christian community that 
existed there, by name Tabitha, or Dorcas, “a 
woman full of good works and alms deeds which 
she did,” fell sick and died. The Christians of 
Jaffa, hearing that Peter, the Apostle, was at Lydda 
(Ludd), sent two men there to ask him to come to 
their city. He came, “and kneeled down, and 
prayed; and turning to the body, he said, Tabitha, 


+ Tosefta, Yoma, ch. ii, 4; also Jerusalem Talmud, Yoma, ch. iii, 


eg 
* Madden, op. cit., pp. 92-94. 
* Josephus, Antiquities XVII, ch. xiii, 2, 4. 


64 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


arise. And she opened her eyes; and when she 
saw Peter, she sat up. And he gave her his hand, 
and raised her up. . . And it became known 
throughout all Joppa.” ‘The expression “ through- 
out all Joppa” seems to indicate that Jaffa did not 
then consist only of the closely-crowded hill-city 
within the walls, but comprised also, as is the case 
to-day, a considerable number of isolated dwellings 
dispersed over a comparatively large area outside 
the walls. This would imply the existence of 
extensive gardens, and thus confirms indirectly the 
importance and wealth of the town at the time, and 
the high state of cultivation of the lands around it. 
About a mile to the east of Jaffa proper, there is 
still shown the rock-tomb in which Tabitha is said 
to have been buried. It consists of a rock-cut 
chamber, the entrance to which is by a descent of 
six or seven stone steps; the chamber is paved with 
mosaics, and on three sides sepulchral niches have 
been cut into the walls. ‘The Russian priests, who 
are the owners of the site, have transformed the 
tomb into a chapel covered with a domed roof; and 
not far from it they have built a church dedicated 
to Tabitha. In modern times the Greeks of Jaffa 
used, once every year, to visit Tabitha’s tomb and 
worship there, so that it had become a kind of 
sanctuary. The Moslems, however, who, almost in 
every place where there is a Christian sanctuary, 
have established a rival Moslem shrine in the 
immediate neighbourhood, have also in this case 
created near the “tomb of Tabitha” a “ makém 
‘of Sheikh Abu-Kebir.’”” 


* Acts ix, 36-42. 
* Seer ochick; in’ PEF OS, i i0aon,: 15. 


UNDER THE ROMANS AND BYZANTINES 65 


Peter remained a few days at Jaffa, where he 
stayed “ with one Simon a tanner, whose house is 
by the seaside.’ Cornelius, an Italian centurion 
of the Roman garrison of Cesarea, as a result of a 
vision which he had had, sent two of his servants 
under the escort of a soldier, to Jaffa to ask the 
apostle to come to Cesarea. The following day, 
about midday, whilst the messengers were on their 
way and approaching Jaffa, Peter, who had gone on 
the roof of the house to pray, “ fell into a trance,” 
and had the vision of the sheet filled with all kinds 
of animals, clean and unclean, and heard the voice 
that told him to receive the Gentiles into the 
Christian Church. He was still pondering over the 
meaning of his vision, when Cornelius’ messengers 
arrived and requested him to go with them. “ And 
on the morrow he arose and went forth with them ” 
on the road which led along the shore to Czsarea, 
to ‘gain there the first Gentile convert: to 
Christianity.” When, in 1654, the present Latin 
hospice of Jaffa was founded, it was built on the 
place which tradition then believed to be that of the 
tanner’s house; to-day, however, the site is pointed 
out in a small mosque called the /am’a eth-Thabieh 
(Mosque of the Bastion), from the bastion which 
stood in its neighbourhood at the time when the 
city was still surrounded by fortified walls. 

The administrative separation of Jaffa from 
Jerusalem, and its reunion with the other maritime 
cities, weakening as it did the influence of the 
Jewish element in the town, probably led to a new 
influx of Greeks and Hellenized Jews and to the 
revival of some of the pagan cults of which Jaffa 


4 Wcts 5,26. 
*) Acts\x,. 1-23. 


66 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


had been the seat previously to the Maccabean 
conquest; for we have already seen that towards 
the middle of the first century A.D. mention is 
made of the existence, there, of altars to Kepheus 
and his brother Phineus.’ Still, the large majority 
of the population remained Jewish, and when the 
revolt of the Jews against Rome broke out in 
A.D. 65, Jaffa was one of the principal centres of 
the insurrection. 

The taking of the census as a basis for the poll- 
tax, which was looked upon by the people as 
a symbol of slavery; the surveying of the fields and 
the establishment of a land-tax, which the Jews 
resented as being contrary to their religion, God 
alone being the Lord of the land to whom a tax on 
its produce was due; the appointment of Philo’s 
nephew, Tiberius Alexander, an apostate Jew, as 
procurator (A.D. 45-48): these and some other 
unpopular measures of the Roman administration 
had created deep-seated dissatisfaction among the 
Jews. And when to these general causes of 
irritation there were added the cruel excesses of the 
procurators Cumanus (48-52) and Felix (52-60), 
and the robberies and vicious provocations of 
Gessius Florus (64-66), the nation could no longer 
control its fury, and the revolt broke out. The first 
outbreak occurred at Cesarea, in the form of a 
street fight between Jews and Greeks, which the 
Roman governor was unable to suppress; shortly 
afterwards the Roman garrison of Jerusalem was 
massacred. 

The Roman proconsul of Syria, Cestius Gallus, 
who was residing at Antioch, quickly realised that 
the extreme state of desperation of the people was 


* Pomponius Mela, De situ orbis libri III, i, 11. 


UNDER THE ROMANS AND BYZANTINES _ 67 


bound to make of the insurrection a very serious 
affair. Collecting all his available forces, 
amounting to some 20,000 Roman soldiers and 
about as many auxiliaries, he took up his head- 
quarters at Acco with the intention first to 
re-establish order in Galilee. But the seriousness 
and swiftness of developments in Judea soon 
compelled him to move southward, and he 
established himself at Caesarea. From here “he 
sent on part of his army to Joppa, and gave order, 
that if they could surprise that city they should 
occupy it; but if the citizens should perceive that 
they were coming to attack them, they were then to 
wait for him and the rest of the army. So some of 
them made a forced march by the seaside, and some 
by land, and so coming up on both sides, they took 
the city with ease: and, as the inhabitants had made 
no provision beforehand for flight, and far less for 
fishting, the soldiers fell upon them, and slew them 
all, with their families, and then plundered and 
burnt the city. And the number of the slain was 
eight thousand four hundred.” 

Cestius advanced on Jerusalem; but after several 
unsuccessful assaults he gave up the siege and was 
retiring towards the plain closely pursued by the 
Jews, when, in the pass of Beth Horon, he was 
attacked by them, and his army routed. The 
rupture with Rome was complete. 

The emperor Nero now placed one of his best 
generals, Titus Flavius Vespasian, in charge of 
affairs in Syria. In the spring’ of A.D. 67. he 
marched with an army of 50,000 men into Galilee, 
where he entirely re-established the Roman rule 


+ Josephus, Jewish Wars II, ch. xviii, 10. 


68 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


before the end of the year. Early in A.D. 68 he 
entered Judea and occupied Cesarea. 

During the two years which had elapsed since the 
defeat of Cestius, Jaffa had been re-occupied by a 
large number of Jews, who had begun to rebuild 
the city and its walls, and had made themselves 
ships with which they were harassing commerce 
along the Syrian and Egyptian coasts, and, 
especially, interfering with the maritime com- 
munications between the Roman armies in 
Palestine and those in Egypt.’ Vespasian sent to 
Jaffa a force of cavalry and infantry, who surprised 
the town at night and entered it whilst it was 
unguarded. The occupants of the city, realizing 
that resistance was futile, fled to their ships, and 
spent the night on the waters, at safe distance from 
the shore. “Now Joppa is without a haven 
naturally, for it ends in a rough shore, straight all 
the rest of it, but the two ends converge towards 
each other, where there are deep precipices, and 
great rocks that jut out into the open sea, and where 
the chains wherewith Andromeda was bound are 
still shown, attesting the antiquity of that fable, and 
the north wind blows and beats upon the shore, and 
dashes mighty waves against the rocks which 
receive them, and renders the haven more 
dangerous than the open sea. Now as the people 
from Jaffa were tossing about in the offing, in the 
morning a violent wind blew upon them (it 1s called 
by those that sail there Black Boreas), and dashed 
some of their ships against one another there, and 
some against the rocks; and many that were 
violently striving against the advancing tide to get 


* Josephus, Jewish Wars III, ch. ix, 2. 


UNDER THE ROMANS AND BYZANTINES — 69 


into the open sea (for they were afraid of the rocky 
shore and the enemy upon it) were submerged by 
the waves that rose mountains high. Nor was there 
any place where they could flee to, nor any safety 
if they stayed where they were, as they were thrust 
off the sea by the violence of the wind, and out of 
the city by the violence of the Romans. And there 
was loud lamentation when the ships dashed against 
one another, and a terrible noise when they were 
broken to pieces; and some of the multitude in them 
were swallowed up by the waves, and so perished, 
and a great many were entangled in the wrecks. 
And some of them thought that to die by their 
own swords was an easier death than by the sea, 
and so they killed themselves; however, most were 
carried away by the waves, and dashed to pieces 
against the rocks, so that the sea was bloody a long 
way, and the shore was full of dead bodies, and the 
Romans watched for those that were carried ashore 
safe and slew them. And the number of bodies 
that came ashore was four thousand two hundred. 
The Romans also took the city without opposition, 
and rased it to the ground.” Vespasian, to prevent 
the Jews from again using the harbour of Jaffa 
against him, placed a fortified camp on the summit 
of the hill, where the citadel had stood, and left 
there a garrison of infantry and cavalry who 
ravaged the district and destroyed all the villages 
and small towns.’ 

He then continued his operations in Judea, 
capturing one town or village after the other, and 
sradually isolating Jerusalem. Proclaimed emperor 
in July A.D. 69, he returned to Rome and left the 


+ Josephus, Jewish Wars III, ch. ix, 3. 
? Josephus, Jewish War III, ch. ix, 4. 


70 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


task of prosecuting the campaign to his son Titus, 
who, after a five months’ siege, occupied Jerusalem 
on the 8th of September, A.D. 70, and completely 
destroyed the city and the Temple. 

In commemoration of the Roman _ victory, 
Vespasian and his immediate successors on the 
throne struck gold, silver, and copper coins bearing 
designs and inscriptions celebrating the re-conquest 
of Judea. Of these coins several have special 
reference to the destruction of the Jewish fleet at 
Jaffa. The brass coin reproduced in Fig. 7 shows, 
on the reverse, 5 | 
Judea sitting in 
desolation under 
the shade of a 
palm tree, sur- 
rounded by the 
wordsJ UDAEA — 

NAVALIS. FIGURE 7? 

On the coin represented in Fig. 8, which belongs 
to the collections of the British Museum, the Jews 
are shown in supplication at the feet of Titus, who 
is standing holding in his right 
hand, a winged Victory (?), and 
his right foot resting on the prow 
of a broken galley; the date of 
thisicom"s/ALD 93 io here ane 
also in existence coins of Ves- 
pasian, Titus, and Domitian, SL 
with the legend VICTORIA Ficure 8? 
NAVALIS, All these coins offer a_ striking 


evidence of the great military importance which was 








—— 


* Madden, op. cit., pp. 192-194. 
? Madden, op. cit., pp. 192-194. 
*> Madden, op. cit., pp. 192-194. 


UNDER THE ROMANS AND BYZANTINES _ 71 


attached, in the view of the Romans, to the capture 
of Jaffa and the destruction of the young, but 
apparently effective, naval power of the Jews. 
Jaffa did not long remain in ruins. Coins have 
been found, struck during the reign of the emperor 
Elagabalus (A.D. 218-222), bearing the image of 
Athena standing (which may possibly be connected 
with some representation of the legend of Perseus 
and Andromeda) and inscribed Iorrys Pdaouas 
(Joppe Flavia)’ or GAAoV{IO] TMHE or SAA IOI 
(Fig. 9), which ~ 
proves that the 
rebuilding of Ag 
the town was Geese 
commenced as & 
early as the 
reign of Ves- cae 
pasian (Titus FIGURE 9° 
Flavius Vespasianus), that is not later than A.D. 79, 
and that it was named after him. The emperors 
were bent upon completely romanizing Judea, and, 
to a large extent, they seem to have succeeded in 
this policy, for the new Jaffa appears to have been 
from the start, at least in outward form and in 
language, if not in thought, a predominantly Greeco- 
Roman city. The Jews flocked back to it in large 
numbers, especially after the revolt of Bar-Kokhba 
under Hadrian in 132-135, when they were for- 
bidden on pain of death to enter Jerusalem, or even 
to look upon it from afar: a prohibition which 





* Darricarriére, Sur une Monnaie inédite de Joppé, in Revue 
Archéologique, Nouvelle Série, t. XLIII, 1882, p. 74 ff. (quoted by 
Schiirer, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 132. 

2 G..F. Hill, op. cst., Plate V, No. 7. 

* A. Schlatter, Zur Topographie und Geschichte Paldstinas, 1893, 


Pp. 2. 


72 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


naturally led to their concentration in the other 
large cities. At Jaffa, at the same time, the 
reviving commercial activity of the town led to the 
immigration and settlement of Jewish merchants _ 
from Egypt, Cyrenaica, Asia Minor, Chios, 
Babylon, and other parts of the Roman empire. 
That the Jewish community of Jaffa during the 
second, third, and fourth centuries A.D. must have 
been quite important, may be inferred from the 
comparatively large number of Talmudic scholars 
whose names are mentioned in the rabbinical 
writings as being originally from Jaffa. Such are: 
Rabbi Acha (Jerus. J7oed Katan, Ber. Rabb. c. 15), 
Rabbi Pinchas (Pesachim, 1), Rabbi Adda 
(Megillakh 16 b), Rabbi Nachman (Vayikra 
Rab. c. 6), Rabbi Tanchum (Pes. Rab. c. 17), Rabbi 
Judah ben Tarphon,’ and many others. Several 
of them were buried at Jaffa, and the ¢itulz’ of 
their tombs, bearing their names in Hebrew or in 
Greek, or in both these languages, have been found 
in the ancient Grzeco-Jewish necropolis which 
Clermont-Ganneau discovered, in 1874, on the out- 
skirts of the city (see Appendix I). 

Zenobia, queen of Palmyra and widow of the 
Dux Oriente Odaenathus, having in 267 thrown off 
her allegiance to Rome, her general Zabda occupied 
Palestine and Egypt in A.D. 270, and for a short 
time Jaffa found itself under Palmyrene rule. But 
in the following year already, the emperor Aurelian 
in person led an expedition into Syria, drove the 
Palmyrenes out, and, in 272 captured Zenobia 
and her sons, and made himself master of her 


+ Mishna, Eduyot VIII, 2, according to Samuel Klein: Viidisch~ 
paldstinisches Corpus Inscriptionum, Vienna 1920, p. 40. 
* Funerary inscriptions. 


UNDER THE ROMANS AND BYZANTINES- 73 


beautiful capital which was entirely destroyed in 
Pipi 

Meanwhile, although Jaffa in aspect and 
language had become a Greco-Roman town, 
Judaism still remained the predominant religion of 
its inhabitants, and Christianity does not seem to 
have made any considerable progress there. The 
list of Palestinian prelates who are mentioned as 
having been present at the Council of Nicaea in 
325 includes “the Bishops of Jerusalem, Neapolis 
(Nablus), Sebaste (Samaria), Gadara (Gezer), 
Ascalon, Nicopolis (Amwas), Yamnia (Yebnah), 
Eleutheropolis (Beit-Jibrin), Maximianopolis (?), 
Jericho, Sebulon (Neby Sebelan), Lydda, Azotus 
(Ashdod), Scythopolis (Beisan), Gaza, Aila 
(Akabah), and Capitolias (Beit Ras),”" but does not 
speak of a Bishop of Jaffa; neither is the existence 
of a Christian community at Jaffa hinted at by 
Eusebius who passed through the town on his way 
from Egypt to Saida in A.D. 330. St. Jeréme, 
who visited Jaffa in A.D. 382 or 383 in the company 
of the Holy Paula of Rome and her daughter the 
Holy Eustochium, admired in Jaffa “ the harbour 
of the fugitive Jonah,” and was shown the rock to 
which Andromeda was chained: “ Hic locus est in 
guo usque hodie saxa monstrantur in littore, in 
guibus Andromeda religata Perset quondam sit 
liberata praesidio” ;’ but no mention is made of any 
Christian site such as the house of Tabitha or that 
of Simon the Tanner, which would certainly have 
p. 108 (quoted by Archdeacon Dowling, The Episcopal Succession in 
Jerusalem from c. A.D. 30, in P.E.F.Q.S., 1913, p. 165). 

2 The Pilgrimage of the Holy Paula, by St. Jerdme, P.P.T.S., 1896, 
P. 4. 


5 Comment. in Jonam, c. I (quoted by S. Munk, Palestine.» Descrip- 
tion géographique, historique et archéologique, Paris, 1881, p. 59). 


74. THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


been pointed out to the travellers if there had been 
at Jaffa an important Christian community, seeing 
that at Czesarea, which they visited a few days 
before Jaffa, they did not fail to admire the house 
of the centurion Cornelius. 

In A.D. 395 occurred the partition of the Roman 
empire, and Palestine naturally fell to the share of 
the emperor of Byzantium. Whether, and in what 
manner and measure, this change affected the life 
and customs of the people of Jaffa, or the aspect of 
the city, we cannot say, as our information about 
this period is exceedingly scanty. Saint Cyril of 
Alexandria, writing during the first half of the fifth 
century, describes it as an important commercial 
centre and as the place of embarkation for those 
who travel from Judea to the other countries of the 
Levant. Soon afterwards we find Jaffa the seat 
of a bishopric under the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. 
Amongst the Bishops who signed the acts of the 
Council of Ephesus, which took place in A.D. 431, 
there appears one Fidus, Bishop of Jafta; similarly, 
at the Council of Jerusalem i mies): _ 536, a Bishop 
of Jaffa, named Elias, was present.’ Whether it 
was made a bishopric on account of the discovery 
of the tomb of Tabitha, or whether the creation of a 
bishopric and the increased transit of pilgrims from 
foreign countries on their way to Jerusalem led to 
the search for the tomb and its happy discovery, 
the fact is that during the sixth century we find the 
first recorded references to it. The priest Virgilius 


7 R. P. Abel, La Géographie sacrée chez S. Cyrille d’Alexandrie, in 
Revue Biblique, 1922, p. 417. 

‘* In consilio Ephesino habito anno 431 commemoratur FIDUS 
Joppes episcopus, & ELIAS in concilio Hierosolymitano anno 536 
habito ’’? (Reland, Palaestina ex veteribus monumentis illustrata, 
Utrecht, 1714, p. 867). 


UNDER THE ROMANS AND BYZANTINES - 75 


towards the year 500 and Theodosius towards 530, 
are attracted to Jaffa by the memory of the apostle 
Peter and the resurrection of Tabitha; and 
Antoninus Martyr, who visited the Holy Places of 
Palestine about A.D. 560-570, writes: “ Leaving 
Jerusalem, I went down to Joppa, where rests St. 
Wabitha:;7 

For about two hundred years from the date of the 
partition of the Roman Empire, peace had reigned 
in Palestine, when in A.D. 613 the Sassanid king 
of Persia, Chrosroes II, tempted by the weakening 
of the imperial authority throughout the Asiatic 
dominions of Byzantium, attacked the usurper 
Phocas, invaded northern Syria, and in the follow- 
ing year conquered Palestine, spreading desolation 
through the whole country. His rule there lasted 
only fourteen years: the emperor Heraclius in his 
turn took the offensive, destroyed the Persian army 
in several victorious battles, and forced Siroes, 
Chrosroes’ son, to submit in A.D. 628. But 
Heraclius’ victories were also the cause which led 
to the loss of his Asiatic dominions. Through the 
annihilation of the military power of Persia there 
disappeared the bulwark which had so far kept in 
check the nomads of the Arabian peninsula; and 
when, a few years later, the young armies of Islam 
surged out from the desert and struck their first 
blow at the Syrian barriers of the weakened empire, 
Byzantium found herself alone to fight a battle in 
which she was bound to succumb. 


* F. Vigouroux, Dictionnaire de la Bible, 1899, art. ‘* Joppé.’”’ 
2 Of the Holy Places visited by Antoninus Martyr, P.P.T.S., 1896, 


P. 35: 


CHAPTER WV! 


JAFFA UNDER THE ARABS 
(A.D. 636—1099) 


Mohammed died in A.D. 632. In the battle on 
the Yarmuk (A.D. 636) the army of Heraclius was 
utterly defeated by the Arab tribes of the desert 
united under the leadership of Omar. The same 
year, Omar’s general Amr Ibn al-As captured 
Jaffa;° the bishopric, of which it had been the seat, 
was suppressed, and the name of the town was 
changed from Joppe to Yafah. Neither the siege 
nor the change of régime appear to have brought 
with them any harmful consequences to the town, 
which continued to play its rdéle as the principal 
port of Palestine. The Christian and Jewish 
pilgrims continued to pass through it on their way 
to and from Jerusalem, the former generally 
stopping for a short while to visit the Tanner’s 
house and Tabitha’s tomb, and to pray at the 
church ol ot, bererine Apostle, °** which had been 
built at Jaffa, no doubt already before the Arab 
conquest, probably at the time of the creation of the 
Jaffa bishopric. 

In A.D. 878, Ahmed ibn Tulun, the governor of 
Egypt, revolted against the Abbasid khalifs of 


ae ie epee Paldstina unter den Arabern 632-1516; Leipzig, 
I91i5, p- 
: The Cian enone of Saint Willibald c. A.D. 754, P.P.T.S., London, 
1895, Pp. 25. 
7 


JAFFA UNDER THE ARABS 77 


Baghdad, declared himself independent, and 
occupied Palestine and Syria.’ His son, Abu-l- 
Jeish Khumaraweyh, who succeeded him in 
A.D. 884, saw his domination over these countries 
challenged by the khalif’s Turkish governors of 
Mosul and Anbar, who captured Damascus in 
A.D. 885. A first army sent against them having 
been defeated on the Orontes, Khumaraweyh 
himself led a fresh force of 70,000 men into 
Palestine, one part of them advancing by land 
whilst the others were transported by the fleet to 
Jaffa. In a battle at et-Tawahin (“ The Mills”), 
probably the mills on the river Aujah a few miles 
north of Jaffa, the enemy was defeated; Damascus 
was retaken, and the khalif had to confirm 
Khumaraweyh and his descendants for a term of 
thirty years in the government of Palestine and the 
other countries occupied by him. According to 
the Arab geographer, Yakubi, writing in A.D. 801, 
Jaffa, although still a small town at the time, had 
already become the principal commercial centre of 
Palestine, being the seaport of Ramleh which was 
then the capital of the country.’ 

In A.D. 905, the khalif Moktafi’s general, 
Mohammed ibn-Suleyman, marched through Syria 
and Palestine into Egypt whilst his fleet landed at 
Damietta, destroying the Egyptian army, and put 
an end to the Tulunid dynasty by carrying the 
reigning prince, Sheyban, and all the remaining 
members of the family as prisoners to Baghdad. 

In the summer of 969, Egypt was conquered on 


1 Stanley Lane-Poole, A History of Egypt in the Middle Ages, Second 
Edition, London, 1914, p. 66. 

2 Val <uby, Geography, Leyden, 1861, P, 117 (quoted by Vigouroux, 
Dictionnaire de la Bible, 1899, art. “ Toppé? Ay 


78 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


behalf of El-Moizz, the Fatimid khalif of 
Kayrawan in Berbery, by his commander-in-chief 
Jawhar, and a few months later one of his generals, 
Jafar ibn-Fellah, subdued Palestine. Two years 
later, Jafar was killed near Damascus in a battle 
against Hassan ibn-Ahmed, the leader of the 
Carmarthian Arabs. The Fatimid army was 
routed and its remnants retreated into Palestine. 
Hassan, marching after them, seized Ramleh and 
besieged Jaffa, behind the walls of which the 
Egyptians, still 11,000 strong, had sought refuge. 
Finding the resistance stronger than he had 
expected her ilett)' ay oman son his, @ ariiyaurte 
continue the siege, whilst he himself, with 
the greater part of his forces, invaded Egypt, 
where he was defeated and had to seek safety in 
fight. African troops were now despatched from 
Cairo to relieve Jaffa, which was still holding out; 
the garrison was brought back to Egypt, but no 
attempt was made to hold the city any further, 
seeing that Hassan ibn-Ahmed had succeeded in 
reaching Damascus and that an offensive return on 
his part was possible at any moment. Of Jaffa at 
the time of these events we possess no other 
description than the following few lines by the 
learned Arab traveller, Abu-Mohammed Abdallah | 
ibn-Ahmed of Jerusalem, commonly called el- 
Mukaddasi: “ Yafah, lying on the sea, is but a 
small town, although the emporium of Palestine 
and the port of ar-Ramleh. It is protected by an 
impregnable fortress, with iron gates; and the sea- 
gates are also of iron. The mosque is pleasant to the 


i 


1 Lane-Poole, op. cit., p. 106. 


JAFFA UNDER THE ARABS 79 


eye, and overlooks the sea. The harbour is 
excellent.” 

Jaffa was one of the appointed stations for the 
exchange or ransoming of Moslem captives, and 
one of the depots for the concentration of the native 
levies. ‘“ All along the coast of the Province of 
Syria are the watch-stations (Aibdt), where the 
levies assemble. The warships and the galleys of 
the Greeks also come into these ports, bringing 
aboard of them the captives taken from the 
Muslims; these they offer for ransom—three for the 
hundred Dinars.’ And in each of these:ports there 
are men who know the Greek tongue, for they have 
missions to the Greeks, and trade with them in 
divers wares. At the Stations, whenever a Greek 
vessel appears, they sound the horns; also, if it be 
night, they light a beacon there, on the tower, or, if 
it be day, they make a great smoke. From every 
watch-station on the coast up to the capital 
(ar-Ramleh) are built, at intervals, high towers, in 
each of which 1s stationed a company of men. On 
the occasion of the arrival of the Greek ships the 
men, perceiving them, kindle the beacon on the 
tower nearest to the coast Station, and then on that 
lying next above it, and then on, one after another; 
so that hardly is an hour elapsed before the 
trumpets are sounding in the capital, and drums are 
beating in the towers, calling the people down to 
their Watch-station by the sea; and they hurry out 
in force, with their arms, and the’ young men of the 
villages gather together, Then the ransoming 
begins. One prisoner will be given in exchange 


+ Description of the Province of Syria, including Palestine, by 
Mukaddasi, c. A.D. 985, P.P.T.S., London, 1896, p. 54. 
? That is about £16 for each captive. 


80 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


for another, or money and jewels will be offered; 
until at length all the prisoners who are in the 
Greek ships have been set free. And the Watch- 
stations of this province where this ransoming of 
captives takes place as Ghazzah, Mimas, Askalan, 
Mahitz-(the Port of) Azdtid, Mahiz-(the Port of) 
Yubnah, Yafah and Arsif.’”’ 

The Fatimid hold over Palestine was always 
very loose. Rebellions and civil wars followed 
each other in close succession, laying the fields 
waste and greatly hampering trade along the roads; 
the towns on the coast, including Jaffa, were less 
affected, by reason of the mastery of the sea which 
Egypt continued to enjoy, thanks to its fleet. The 
exactions of the ruling power, which was 
permanently in need of money, contributed to 
impoverish the country; and violent earthquakes in 
A.D. 1016 and 1033 added to the general confusion 
and misery. That of December 5th, A.D. 1033, was 
especially destructive : at Jerusalem part of the walls 
of the city and of the citadel of David fell to the 
sround; at Ramleh a third of the town was thrown 
down and many people were killed under the ruins. 
The Rabbi, the Gaon Solomon ben Yehuda, who 
was living in Ramleh and witnessed the catastrophe, 
writing shortly afterwards to a friend in Egypt, 
says that “this event took place alike in Ramleh, in 
the whole of Filastin (Palestine), from fortified 
city to open village, in all fortresses of Egypt (1.e., 


Fatimid ruler), from the sea to Fort Dan. . . ‘This 
event took place on Thursday. . . In some places 
the waters in the cisterns reached the brims. . . On 


Friday, as well as on the following night, the quake 


* Mukaddasi, op. cit., pp. 61-62. 


JAFFA UNDER THE ARABS 81 


recurred.” ‘This letter justifies the conclusion that 
Jaffa, too, must have considerably suffered from this 
earthquake. The statement that “in some places 
the waters in the cisterns reached the brims,” with 
its allusion to some particularly marked oscillation 
in the level of the surface of the land provides a 
striking confirmation of the fact related by the Arab 
historians, no doubt with the usual amount of 
oriental exaggeration, that “the sea suddenly 
receded for the distance of a day’s journey, but on 
the inhabitants of the neighbourhood taking 
possession of the reclaimed land, it suddenly 
returned and overwhelmed them, so that an 
immense destruction of life ensued.”” Apparently 
at Jaffa and in other places on the coast, the earth- 
quake was accompanied by a gigantic displacement 
of the waters of the sea. 

Neither natural nor human causes of disturbance 
had succeeded so far in deterring Christian 
and Jewish pilgrims from visiting Palestine. In 
fact, their numbers had been steadily increasing. 
Many of them would journey overland; but those 
who chose the sea route, and these were the larger 
number, generally landed at Jaffa rather than at 
any other Palestinian port, by reason of its nearness 
to Jerusalem. The sea-voyage was made by one or 
other of the fleets of merchant vessels which, once 


1 J. Mann, The Jews in Egypt and in sea under the Fatimid 
Caliphs, Oxford University Press, 1920, Vol. I, 1S7. 

2 W. Besant and E. H. Palmer, cael ‘the City of Herod and 
Saladin, London, 1908, p. 119. 

> A similar phenomenon occurred during the great earthquake of 
December 28th, 1908, in the Straits of Messina, when “* at first the sea 
retired, and then a great wave rolled in, followed by others generally of 
decreasing amplitude. .... At Messina, the height of the great wave 
was 2.70 metres, whilst at Ali and Giardini, it reached 8.40 metres, and 
at San Alessio as much as 11,7 metres (Encyclopedia Britannica, 
Eleventh Edition, article ‘‘ Earthquake Mm) 


$2 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


or twice very year, were accustomed to leave the 
Italian ports of Genoa, Pisa and Amalfi for the 
Levant. Of the arrival of such a Genoese fleet at 
Jaffa we have the interesting account of an eye- 
witness in the person of the priest Ingulf, who 
in 1076, became Abbot of Croyland, and in later 
years wrote a history of the Abbots of that convent, 
including his own experiences. He _ visited 
Palestine as a member of a group of about thirty 
French Normans who had joined the pilgrim party, 
7,000 strong, which left Germany in November, 
1064, under the leadership of the Archbishop 
Siegfried of Mayence. Whereas the Germans (of 
whom only 2,000 were left on the arrival of the 
party in Palestine) made the return journey again 
by land, the Normans chose the sea route, taking 
advantage of the presence at Jaffa, in the spring of 
1065, of a Genoese trading fleet which had already 
called in turn at the ports further north and was 
now sailing homeward. The first port of call in 
Italy was Brindisi, where the pilgrims were landed.’ 

These commercial expeditions of the Italian 
cities were suddenly brought to a standstill in 1071, 
in consequence of the invasion of Syria and 
Palestine by the Seljuks, a Turkish tribe from 
Khorasan, who, having first established their rule 
over a considerable part of Central Asia and Persia, 
had now succeeded, on account of their sternly 
orthodox sunnism, in forcing themselves upon the 
khalifs of Baghdad as their protectors and cham- 
pions against the “heretic ” shite monarchs of 
Egypt. In 1071 the Seljuk general, Atsiz, con- 
quered Palestine and occupied Jerusalem; he 


' Adolf Schaube, Handelsgeschichte der Romanischen Vélker des 
Mittelmeergebiets bis zum Ende der Kreuzsziige, Berlin, 1906, p. 65. 


JAFFA UNDER THE ARABS 83 


besieged Jaffa,’ but failed to take it, and the city 
remained under the sway of the Fatimids.’ The 
cruel fanaticism of the Seljuks made life intolerable 
to Christian and Jew alike. For fear of being 
robbed, the merchants hardly dared to venture out 
upon the roads; and the result was that, although 
the maritime cities were never occupied by the 
Seljuks, their markets were devoid of goods 
for export, and the Italian trade was completely 
crippled. The loss was felt the more acutely as, 
on account of the persecutions to which the pilgrims 
were subjected, the pilgrimages also were falling 
away. 

The Christian clergy of Europe, at the sight of 
the suffering of its Palestinian co-religionists and 
of the persecution of the pilgrims, was bound to 
react in some form or other to these evils. The 
Italian cities, severely hit by the disappearance of 
their once so profitable business with the Levant, 
were only too eager to assist any undertaking, what- 
ever its motives, that would result in opening again 
to their nationals the markets of Palestine and 
Syria. Of this combination of religious fervour 
and commercial interests the Crusading movement 
was the result; the opportunity for it was provided 
by domestic quarrels among the Seljuks and by the 
degenerate luxuriousness of the Fatimids ;its success 
was due to the association of French and English 
military valour with Italian sea-power. 

In 1098, Antioch, in Northern Syria, was taken 
by the Crusaders, and on the news of its fall being 
received at Cairo, an Egyptian army under 


FE1-Afdal ibn-Bedr, the wezir of the Fatimid khalif 


1 Munk, Palestine, p. 617. 
2 Mann, op. cit., p. 188. 


84. . THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


El-Mustali, moved into Palestine, and took 
Jerusalem and Tyre from the Seljuks. Eleven 
months later, the first Crusaders appeared before 
the walls of the Holy City. 


OH ARTE RINT 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS (A.D. 1099—1268) 


Exactly lke the Philistines, some 2,300 years 
before, the Army of the Cross, under Godfrey of 
Bouillon, had marched from Antioch southwards 
along the coast, in order to keep in touch with the 
Genoese ships ‘which carried their supplies. At 
the news of its progress the Fatimid garrison of 
Jaffa razed the fortifications of the town, and 
destroyed the city and the harbour, so as to prevent 
the Christians from using Jaffa as a base.” For 
this reason the inhabitants left the place, which is 
said to have been found entirely abandoned by 
Godfrey on his arrival there in May, 1099... He 
contented himself with occupying the ruined town, 
and marched up to Jerusalem. 

Here the siege proved far more difficult than he 
had expected, and the Christian army, suffering 
from hunger and thirst, had almost given up the 
hope of ever taking the Holy City when, in June, 
the brothers William and Primus Embriaci, of 
Genoa, arrived at Jaffa with two galleys loaded with 
foodstuffs and carpenters’ tools, and bringing with 
them also a number of artificers and carpenters 
skilled in the manufacture and use of siege engines. 
Surprised at night by the Egyptian fleet, which 

+ H. Sidebotham, England and Palestine, London, 1918, p. 81. 


? Jacques de Vitry, I, 22. 
* William of Tyre, Belli Sacri historia, VIII, 9. 


85 G 


86 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


from its base at Ascalon was keeping command of 
the sea, the Genoese vessels had to be abandoned 
to the enemy; not, however, before all the cargo had 
been safely landed.’ Thanks mainly to the siege- 
towers which the Genoese craftsmen built with 
timber cut in the mountains near Nablus, the siege 
made rapid progress. Almost at the same time 
there arrived at Jaffa a Pisan fleet of 120 ships, 
which had sailed from Italy, by order of the Pope, 
Urban II, early in the spring of the same year, 
under the leadership of Dagobert, Bishop of Pisa 
and Papal legate. The Pisans just arrived in time 
to render valuable assistance in the siege, and 
Jerusalem was taken on July 15th. Immediately 
afterwards, Godfrey returned to Jaffa and began 
with the help of the Pisans to rebuild the city as 
well as the walls and the citadel (of which only one 
tower had been left standing by the Egypttans),’ 
and to repair the harbour. On Christmas Day, the 
Latin kingdom of Jerusalem was founded, “a 
feudal kingdom of Frankish seigzeurs.” Jaffa and 
the surrounding district were made a “ county,” 
which after the capture of Ascalon in 1157 became 
the “county of Jaffa and Ascalon.” Rodger, 
Seigneur of Rosay, was made the first count of 
Jaffa;’ his arms were a gold field with a cross patée 
gules. The bishopric of Jaffa was re-established, 
and was placed under the jurisdiction of the arch- 


* Cl. Huart, Geschichte der Araber, Leipzig, 1915, pp. 6 and 1o9g— 
Also Wilhelm Heyd, Geschichte des Levantehandels im Mittelalter, 
Stuttgart, 1879, Vol. I, p. 149. 

? Marino Sanuto, lib. 3, par. 6, c. 3 (quoted by O. Dapper, 
Naukeurige Beschryving van gansch Syrie, en Palestyn of Heilige Lant, 
etc., Amsterdam, 1677, p. 231). 

> M. Rey, Les Familles d’Outremer: Les Comtes de Jaffa et d’Asca- 
lon, _Paris, 1869, p- 338. 

* Conder, Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, p. 176. 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS 87 


bishopric of Cesarea.. Dagobert was nominated 
Patriarch of Jerusalem, and on the 2nd of 
February, 1100, Godfrey concluded with him a 
treaty by which the Pisans were given one-fourth 
of the town of Jaffa as their property for ever, a 
concession which made them the masters for the 
time being of the whole foreign trade of Jaffa. At 
Faster of the same year a further treaty was 
concluded, stipulating that, in the event of new 
lands or towns, especially Cairo, being conquered 
with Pisan help, or in the event of Godfrey dying 
without direct heirs, the remaining three-fourths of 
Jaffa (as well as the whole city of Jerusalem) should 
become the property of the Pisans. As soon as 
this second act of donation was signed, the Pisan 
fleet, together with some English ships that had 
arrived at Jaffa, sailed back to Italy carrying many 
Crusaders home with it.” Cairo was not taken, and 
at Godfrey’s death the Crusading princes chose his 
brother Baldwin as king; thus the arrangements 
contained in Godfrey’s second act of donation to 
the Pisans were never fulfilled.’ 

On their way home, the Pisan ships had, in May, 
1100, off the island of Rhodes, a sharp encounter 
with the fleet of 200 ships, which had sailed from 
Venice in the previous July under the leadership of 
the Bishop of Castello (Venice), Enrico Contarini, 
and a son of the Doge, Giovanni Michael. Early 
in June, this Venetian fleet arrived at Jaffa, to the 
great relief of Godfrey and Dagobert who had been 


2 Wilhelm Albert Bachiene, Historische und Geographische Beschrei- 
bung von Paldstina nach seinem ehemaligen und jetzigen Zustande. Aus 
_ dem Holléndischen iibersetzt von Gottfried Arnold Maas, Leipzig, 1733, 
Part II, Vol. III, p, 184. 

? Schaube, Handelsgeschichte ...., p. 124. 

5’ Schaube, Handelsgeschichte ...., p. 125. 


838 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


feeling rather unsafe since the departure of the 
Pisans. Whilst the rank and file of the Venetians, 
divided in two sections, went up in turn to visit the 
holy places of Jerusalem, their leaders concluded 
with Godfrey, at Jaffa, an important treaty which, 
on the return of the pilgrims from Jerusalem, was 
confirmed by oath, and by which the Venetians 
undertook to serve “iz Dei servitio”’ from 
June 24th till August 15th. In recompense for this 
military assistance, they were to receive in Jaffa and 
in every other town of the coast or of the interior 
which the Franks had already conquered, or would 
yet conquer, with their help, a church, a site suitable 
for the creation of a market, complete freedom from 
tolls for all time, and a third part of the spoil which 
would be gained in any future conquests. On the 
basis of this treaty a common expedition against 
Acco was prepared, but, before it could start, God- 
frey died on the 18th July, at the hospital which he 
himself had built at Jaffa, of a fever, caught a few 
weeks before in the Huleh marshes.’ In the course 
of the one year that elapsed since his arrival at 
Jaffa, a considerable part of the town and its 
defences had been rebuilt, the former inhabitants 
had returned, and a large number of Franks had 
settled there in addition; the harbour was again 
busy: Jaffa was well on the way to become once 
more a flourishing commercial centre. 

The death of Godfrey led to the abandonment, 
for the time being, of the expedition against Acco. 
Instead, Tancred and the Venetians contented 
themselves with occupying Haifa, after which the 
fleet sailed home to Venice.’ 
~ 1°C. R. Conder, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, London, 1897, 





73. : 
? Schaube, op. cit., p. 116. 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS 89 


Meanwhile, the Fatimid armies had had time to 
recover from the effects of the loss of Jerusalem, 
and El-Afdal began to think of its reconquest. 
The first necessary step was to drive the Franks 
out of Jaffa, and to cut them off from the sea. 
Early in the year 1101, Jaffa was besieged by an 
Egyptian army of 20,000 men; and although the 
garrison is stated to have consisted only of 4o 

mounted knights and 200 infantry, the Egyptians 
could achieve no result and had to abandon the 
siege. It is probable that the real reason which 
prompted them to retire was the news of the 
impending approach of new Christian reinforce- 
ments. On April 16th, a Genoese fleet of thirty- 
two ships sailed into Jaffa,’ where she was solemnly 
received by King Baldwin. He concluded with 
the Genoese leaders a treaty, which was written in 
letters of gold and preserved in the church of the 
Holy Sepulchre, and which was confirmed again 
three years later, and renewed by later kings and 
princes. By this treaty Baldwin, in recompense 
for the help given at the siege of Jerusalem, and 
for the promise of further military assistance in all 
future undertakings, gave to the Genoese church 
of St. Laurence a square in Jerusalem, a street in 
Jaffa, and a third part of Czsarea, Arsuf, and Acco 
when those cities should be taken.’ 

In the spring of 1102, king Baldwin sought 
shelter behind the walls of Jaffa after the loss of a 
battle, at Ascalon, against the Egyptians.’ 

1 O. Dapper, op. cit., p. 231. 

2? Fulcheri Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana (1095-1127). Mit 
Erlauterungen und einem Anhange herausg. von Heinrich Hagenmeyer, 
Heidelberg, 1913, p. 394. 

* Conder, Latin Kingdom, p . 83.--Also Heyd, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 153. 


“The Historie of the first Beieaiion to Jerusalem, by Godfrey of 
Bullen, Robert. of Normandie, and other Christian Princes, written by 


go THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


On the 13th of October of the same year, Jaffa 
was visited by a storm of exceptional violence, 
which resulted in the loss of more than a thousand 
lives and many ships. The catastrophe occurred 
on the day following that of the arrival by sea of 
the pilgrim Saewulf, who has given the following 
exceedingly vivid account of it :’ 

“On the very same day that we anchored, some- 
one said to me, God prompting him, as I believe: 
Sir, go on shore to-day, lest perhaps to-night, or 
early in the morning, a storm may come on, and you 
may not be able to land. When I heard this, I was 
at once seized with a desire to go ashore. I hired a 
boat, and with all my belongings landed. While 
I was landing, the sea became troubled, the tossing 
increased, and a violent tempest arose, but by the 
gracious favour of God I arrived unharmed. What 
further took place? We went into the city to seek 
for lodging, wearied and overcome with our long 
toil; we took some refreshment and rested. How- 
ever, early in the morning, as we came out from 
church, we heard the noise of the sea, the cries of 
the people, and all were running together, and 
wondering at such things as they had never heard 
before. We ran, full of fear with the rest, and 
came to the shore. When we got there, we saw the 
storm running mountain high, and beheld the 
bodies of men and women without number drowned 
and miserably lying on the beach. We saw also 
ships dashed against each other and broken into 
small pieces. Who could listen to anything but 


Robert, whome some call the Englishman, a Monke of Saint Remigius 
. . in Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes, by Samuel 
Purchas, Glasgow, 1905, Vol. VIL, pp. 466-467. 
1 The Pilgrimage of Saewulf to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 
A.D. 1102 and 1103, P.P.T.S., London, 1896, pp. 6-8. 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS OI 


the roaring of the sea and the crashing of the ships? 
It was even louder than the cries of the people and 
the shouting of all the crews. Our ship, however, 
being very large and strongly built, and several 
others laden with corn and other merchandise, and 
with pilgrims outward or homeward bound, still 
held by their anchors and cables, although they 
were sorely tossed about by the waves. Oh, what 
fear of evil did they fall into! How was their 
merchandise thrown away! What eye of those who 
beheld them was so hard and stony that it could 
refrain from tears? We had not been gazing long, 
when, by the violence of the waves, or the currents, 
the anchors gave way, the cables were broken, and 
the ships were given up to the fierceness of the 
waves, all hope of escape being cut off. They were 
now lifted up on high, now drawn down to the 
depths, and quickly were thrown up out of the deep 
upon the sand or upon the rocks. There they were 
miserably dashed from side to side, and gradually 
torn to pieces by the tempest. The fierceness of 
the storm would not suffer them to return sound to 
the sea, and the steepness of the beach would not 
allow them to reach the shore in safety. But what 
boots it to tell how lamentably sailors and pilgrims, 
when all hope was gone, still clung, some to the 
ships, some to the masts, some to the spars, some to 
the cross-timbers? What more shall I say? Some, 
stupefied with terror, were drowned; some, as they 
were clinging, were decapitated by the timbers of 
their own ships. This may seem incredible to 
many, yet I saw it. Some, washed off from the 
decks of their ships, were carried out again to the 
deep. Some, who knew how to swim, voluntarily 
committed themselves to the waves, and thus 


92 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


many of them perished. Very few, who had 
confidence in their own strength, arrived safe on 
shore. Thus, out of thirty very large ships, some 
of which are commonly called Dormundi, others 
Gulafri, and others Catti, all laden with pilgrims 
and merchandise, scarcely seven remained 
unwrecked by the time I had left the shore. More 
than a thousand persons of either sex perished on 
that day. A greater misery on one day no eye ever 
saw.” 

These notes of Saewulf give us an idea of the 
remarkable activity of the port of Jaffa within three 
years from the time of its conquest by the Franks. 
There are “thirty very large ships” in harbour; 
and they do not belong to one fleet only, for some 
have only just arrived, their outward-bound 
passengers having not yet landed, whilst others are 
on the point of leaving since their homeward-bound 
passengers are already on board. 

During the whole year, 1103, king Baldwin 
continued to rebuild and to embellish the city,’ 
but on two occasions the work had to be interrupted 
in order to beat off attacks by the Egyptians. In 
each case the town was besieged by land and by 
sea.'| The first time, the enemys’ army ‘was 
supported by a fleet of fifty ships and the attack was 
pressed with extraordinary vigour for three or four 
days; the defenders, despairing of the power to 
resist any longer, had almost made up their minds 
to surrender, when Baldwin appeared by sea with 
reinforcements and sailed into the harbour through 
the midst of the Egyptian fleet, whereupon the 
enemy abandoned his efforts and retired to 


‘ Palestine Exploration Fund, The Survey of Western Palestine, 
Memoirs, Vol. II, p. 276. 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS 93 


Ascalon. Some two months later, it having 
become known that Baldwin had fallen ill, the 
Egyptians came back, and again besieged Jaffa with 
a large fleet and a numerous army; but, on receiving 
the news that the king had left his sick-bed and 
was advancing against them, they again gave up the 
siege and withdrew.’ 

A document dated of the same year, 1103, 
mentions the grant, by the Patriarch Arnulf, of a 
piece of land destined for a cemetery to the church 
of St. Peter,’ which was built on the site indicated 
by tradition as being that of the house of Tabitha.’ 

In the spring of 1105, an Egyptian army of 
40,000 men, supported by a large fleet, again be- 
sieged the city, but on the arrival of Baldwin with 
a force of 6,000 men the garrison made a sorvtze, and 
the Egyptians were driven off with the loss of 7,000 
killed, amongst whom was the admiral of Ascalon. 
A few months later they came back, by land only, 
to avenge his death, but were beaten off by the 
people of Jaffa alone.’ 

A year or two later, the Russian Abbot, Daniel, 
passed through Jaffa on his pilgrimage to 
Jerusalem; from the account which he wrote of his 
journey, we learn that the walls of the city on the 
sea side extended right into the water: “the waves 
wash its walls.’ 

Early in 1110, a force of 10,000 Norwegians and 
Englishmen, led by Sigurd, a son, or brother, of 


+ Dapper, op. cit., p. 231. 
2 Dapper, op. cit., p. 232. 
* RGhricht, Studien sur mittelalterlichen Geographie und Topo- 
graphie Syriens, ini ZL. DP 3V.5).1837,) ps 202- 
“ Rohricht, Studien zur mittelalterlichen Geographie und Topo- 
graphie Syriens, in Z.D.P.V., 1887, p. 202. 
* Dapper, op. cit., p. 232. 
° The Pilgrimage of the Russian Abbot Daniel in the Holy Land 
(A.D. 1106-1107), P.P.T.S., London, 1895, p. 54. 








94 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


king Magnus of Norway, arrived at Jaffa in a fleet 
of sixty ships, and stayed there practically the 
whole year, taking part in the capture of Beyrut in 
April and of Sidon in December.’ 

The year 1113 witnessed a new and unsuccessful 
siege of a few days by an Egyptian army from 
Ascalon.’ 

In 1114, the metropolitan church of St. Peter, 
together with the cemetery which had been added 
to it eleven years previously, was given by the 
Patriarch Ebremar to the church of the Holy 
Sepulchre at Jerusalem. The act of donation shows 
that the church of St. Peter was situated outside the 
city walls: “ Acclesiam Sancti Petri majorem, quae 
est apud Joppenae eum cimeterio ecclesiae 
pertinentt.”” 

In 1115, the Egyptians from Ascalon again 
besieged Jaffa with a large army and a fleet of 
seventy ships. The assailants succeeded in 
burning the gates of the city, and made an attempt 
to scale the walls by means of ladders, but were 
driven off.” A few days later, they came back with 
six boats full of ladders, but again they had to 
return home without having obtained any result.’ 


In 1117, king Baldwin invaded Egypt; but he 


became dangerously ill and was compelled to return - 


home, not however before having done sufficient 
damage to discourage the wezir El-Afdal from 
inviting any further such reprisals. However, at 
the end of 1121, the prudent and wise wezir was 


* Conder, Latin Kingdom, p. 90.—Also Besant and Palmer, op. cit., 
P. 253. 
2-H. Prutz, Kulturgeschichte der Kreuzziige, Berlin, 1883, p. 95. 
* Quoted by Clermont-Ganneau in P.E.F.Q.S., 1874, p. 274. 
4 Dapper, op. cit., p. 232.—Also Guérin, La \Judée, Vol. I, p. 19. 
5 Dapper, op. cit., p. 232. 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS 95 


assassinated by order of the khalif, and the latter, 
as soon as the winter was over, delivered a new 
attack on Jaffa with a large army well provided with 
siege engines of every kind, and aided by a fleet of 
seventy galleys. But a Christian relief force of 
7,000 attacked the Egyptians and forced them to 
abandon the siege.’ 

On the 18th April, 1123, king Baldwin lost a 
battle against the Seljuks in northern Syria, and 
was made a prisoner; and as soon as the news of 
this disaster to the Christians became known to the 
khalif Al-Amir at Cairo, he at once started on a 
new offensive against Jaffa, both by land and by 
sea. Huis army was better provided than ever with 
all types of siege engines, and the fleet was com- 
posed of twenty-four of his best battleships.” But, 
Count Eustace Garnier, who had been chosen as 
regent for the time that the king’s captivity would 
last, seems to have had timely warning of their 
movements; for a message was sent to Cyprus, 
where a Venetian fleet of 120 ships, commanded 
by the Doge Domenico Michael in person, had 
recently arrived ex route for Syria and Palestine. 
The Venetians at once crossed the sea to Acco. 
Meanwhile, on May 23rd or 24th, the Egyptians, 
after having sat down before Jaffa for a short while, 
had begun the assault, showering without interrup- 
tion enormous quantities of large and heavy stones 
on the city walls. But the garrison of Jaffa fought 
with the energy of despair. The assaults had been 
continuous for five days, and the walls were 
seriously breached in several places, when the 
Venetian fleet came in view. The Doge had 


* Dapper, op. cit., p. 232. 
? Dapper, op. cit., p. 232. 


96 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


divided his force into two divisions: the one, of 
eighteen ships only, sailed slowly southwards at 
a short distance from the shore; the other, com- 
prising all the remaining ships, put out into the 
open sea and, describing a wide curve, approached 
Jaffa from the west. At the sight of the eighteen 
Venetian ships approaching from the north, the 
Admiral of Ascalon, thinking that these were all the 
forces sent against him, at once advanced to attack 
them. The Venetians, pretending to hesitate, 
began to retreat towards the open sea, closely 
followed by the Egyptians, when suddenly the 
main division of the Venetian fleet was seen 
approaching. The Egyptians, realising the 
extreme peril of their position, turned south in a 
desperate attempt to escape to their base at Ascalon. 
However, the main Venetian division succeeded in 
forestalling them and in barring their line of 
retreat; they were surrounded on all sides, all their 
ships captured, and their crews massacred. At the 
news of the destruction of the fleet, the Egyptian 
general before Jaffa abandoned the siege and 
returned to Ascalon. The naval victory brought 
the Venetians a very rich booty. In addition, they 
concluded with the Regent and the Patriarch 
of Jerusalem a new treaty of alliance, known as the 
Pactum Warmundi, which, apart from other 
special concessions at Jerusalem and Acco, and at 
Tyre and Ascalon when these would be conquered, 
granted them in all the other cities of the kingdom, 
including Jaffa, a number of important privileges. 
These were :* the full and tax-free possession of a 
street, a bath, and an oven; exemption from all 


* Fulcher, op. ctt., Lib. III, c xx. 
? Schaube, Handelsgeschichte ...., p. 131. 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS 97 


customs, duties and harbour dues, except on 
pilgrims’ ships; disputes by Venetian nationals 
were to be tried by Venetian courts of their own; 
they were to exercise the same financial and legal 
authority over non-Venetian inhabitants of their 
quarters as that exercised by the king over his 
subjects; disputes between Venetians and non- 
Venetians were to come before the royal courts only 
if the defendant was not a Venetian. 

The year 1133 saw Jaffa in rebellion against king 
Fulke (1131-1144). |The latter’s wife, Millicent, 
was a cousin of Hugh, Count of Jaffa, one of the 
handsomest, bravest, and strongest men in the 
kingdom. Rightly or wrongly, their relations were 
looked upon with suspicion and jealousy by the 
king. Ata council held at Jerusalem, Hugh’s son- 
in-law, Walter, Count of Czesarea, accused him of 
the crime of lése-mazesté, it is said that the accusa- 
tion was made at the king’s own instigation. The 
barons, having heard the charge, summoned Hugh 
to try the cause by ordeal of battle, but the latter 
failed to appear on the appointed day; he was 
judged guilty in default, and the king marched 
against him. In response, Hugh hastened to 
Ascalon and concluded there an alliance with the 
Moslems, who promised to harass the country whilst 
he himself would defend Jaffa against the king. 
He then returned to Jaffa, closed its gates, and pre- 
pared himself to sustain a long siege, declaring 
that he was determined to resist to the last. His 
energetic attitude did not fail to make an impression 
on the king, who could not afford to have civil war 
so close to his capital. He opened negotiations, 
with the result that Count Hugh promised to suffer 
exile for three years. He accompanied the king to 


98 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


Jerusalem, to prepare himself for his departure. 
One day, while playing dice in the street, he was 
stabbed by a Breton knight, and left for dead. He 
was, however, cured of his wounds, and was sent to 
Sicily, where he died.’ 

During the reign of King Fulke, we find for the 
first ttme Frenchmen engaged in the Jaffa trade; 
for, he is stated to have given to the merchants of 
Marseilles a yearlysum equivalent to £140, from the 
customs revenue of Jaffa;’ and, in the autumn of 
1152, king Baldwin III, when preparing himself 
for the conquest of Ascalon, concluded an alliance 
with them and promised them, amongst other privi- 
leges, freedom of trade in the whole of Palestine. 

In August, 1153, Ascalon was at last captured 
by the Christians; and in the following year this city 
was given by the king to his brother Amaury, Count 
of Jaffa, by an act which constituted the County of 
Jaffa and Ascalon. 

During the second half of the twelfth century, 
the trade of Jaffa reached a very high degree of 
prosperity, chiefly thanks to the energy and 
resourcefulness of the Pisan merchants. By an 
act dated at Ascalon on the 2nd of June, 1157, 
Count Amaury granted them in Jaffa, with the 
approval of the king, his brother, a large site suit- 
able for the establishment of a bazaar, a street for 
building houses, and a site for a church. At the 
same time he reduced by half the customs duties 
to be paid on all goods imported or exported by 
them at Jaffa. 


* Conder, Latin Kingdom, p. 98.—Also Besant and Palmer, of. cit., 
Pp. 291-292. 

? Conder, Latin Kingdom, p. 209. 

* Conder, Latin Kingdom, p. 114. 

* Rey, Les Familles d’ Outremer, p. 340. 

* Schaube, op. cit., p. 136.—Also Rey, Familles d’ Outremer, p. 342. 








JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS 99 


King Baldwin III having died in 1162, Amaury 
became king of Jerusalem; his reign lasted eleven 
years, and he was himself succeeded on the throne 
by his son, Baldwin IV. 

The attitude of cruel intolerance displayed by 
the Crusaders towards the Jews is well-known, and 
is, besides, sufficiently illustrated by the massacres 
of Jews which they carried out, both on their 
journeys through the various countries of Europe 
and in Jerusalem itself. When, after the 
occupation of Jaffa by Godfrey of Bouillon, in 
1099, the previous population of the city began to 
return to their homes, the Crusaders appear to have 
forbidden the return of the Jewish inhabitants; 
indeed, during the first seventy years of the 
Christian occupation of the town, we have no 
indication of the existence of a Jewish community 
there, and when, in 1170, the famous Jewish 
traveller Benjamin of Tudela passed through Jaffa, 
he found there one Jew only, a dyer. From that 
date onward, the Jewish population seems to have 
rapidly increased in numbers, seeing that Jewish 
artisans are mentioned as having practically the 
monopoly of the manufacture of enamelled pottery 
and glass, which became one of the chief objects of 
export from Jaffa to Italy and southern France 
from the year 1200 onwards.’ 

In 1175, William, Marquess of Montferrat, 
arrived from France at the invitation of king 
Baldwin IV, and, having married the king’s sister 
Sybil, was given the County of Jaffa and Ascalon. 


* The Travels of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, A.D. 1160-1173, in 
Early Travels in Palestine, edited by Thomas Wright, London, 1848, 
D7. 

? Rey, Les Colonies Franques de Syrie aux XIIéme et XIIIéme 
siécles, Paris, 1883, p. 211-212. 


100 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


He died in 1177, leaving his wife with child. 
After the birth of the latter, a boy, who was named 
Baldwin, Sybil married Guy of Lusignan, who in 
this manner succeeded William of Montferrat as 
Count of Jaffa and Ascalon.’ In 1183, king 
Baldwin IV renounced the crown of Jerusalem in 
favour of his five-years’-old nephew Baldwin, and 
appointed Guy de Lusignan to be Protector of the 
Realm during his stepson’s minority. But shortly 
afterwards the king revoked this latter act, and 
appointed Raymond, Count of Tripoli, as 
Protector; whereupon Guy left the Court in 
discontent, went home, and prepared his cities of 
Jaffa and Ascalon to resist the king’s new decision.’ 
No armed conflict took place; but when Baldwin IV 
had actually installed his little nephew in his place 
on the throne, the child, after a reign of eight 
months and eight days, was, in 1185, poisoned by 
his mother, Sybil, in order that her husband, Guy, 
might get possession of the Crown in her right, and 
the child’s death was kept secret till Guy, by large 
bribes to the Templars and the Patriarch, 
Heraclius, had secured his coronation.’ His reign, 
however, was only to be a very short one: he had 
hardly been on the throne for about a year, when 
Saladin invaded Palestine. 

Saladin (Salah ed-Din), the sworn enemy of the 
Christians, but one of the most chivalrous soldiers 
known to history, was a Sunni of Khurdish origin. 
As wezir of the Fatimid khalif El-Adid, he had, in 
1169, with great difficulty, beaten off an attack on 


‘ Rey, Familles d’Outremer, pp. 342 
wR Fuller, The Historie of ihe. Holy War, Cambridge, 1639, 


p. 10 
Praia Fuller, The Historie of the Holy War, Cambridge, 1639, 
p. 102. 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS IOI 


Damietta by the combined fleets of the king of 
Jerusalem and the emperor of Byzantium. In 
1170, he retaliated by plundering Gaza and by 
capturing the port of Aila (Akabah). His ambition 
was, from an early date, the re-establishment of 
Moslem rule in Palestine; and when, on El-Adid’s 
death, in 1171, he had made himself sole ruler of 
Egypt, he began to prepare for this ambitious pro- 
gramme. The sultan of Syria, Ndr-ed-Din, 
having died in 1174, Saladin, with only 700 picked 
horsemen, rode across the desert to Damascus and 
took possession of it. Beaten by Baldwin IV in 
1177 at Gezer, he in turn defeated the king of 
Jerusalem in Galilee in the summer 1179, whilst his 
fleet, composed of seventy vessels, harassed the 
coast of Palestine. In the spring of 1180, he made 
a new advance by land and sea, but king Baldwin 
proposed a truce, which was concluded for two 
years. In 1182, Saladin conquered Mesopotamia 
and the remaining parts of northern Syria. All the 
countries surrounding Palestine were now united in 
his hand, and he was only waiting for a suitable 
pretext to embark upon the Holy War. The 
required pretext was furnished by Reginald of 
Chatillon, lord of Kerak, who, in spite of a four 
years’ truce concluded with Saladin, in 1184, by 
Raymond of Tripoli as Regent on behalf of the 
infant king Baldwin V, attacked, in 1186, a 
peaceful caravan of merchants in which the sister 
of Saladin was travelling. The following spring, 
Saladin delivered his long-deferred attack. On 
July 4th, he inflicted a crushing defeat on the 
Franks at Hattin, near Tiberias, the king Guy of 
Lusignan himself being made prisoner. Before 
the end of the month, most of the maritime cities 
H 


102 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


were in Saladin’s power, Jaffa having surrendered 
without fighting to his brother El-Melek el-Adel 
Seif-ed-Din (“the noble Saphadin ”’); on the 2nd 
of October the conquest of the whole country was 
completed by the capitulation of Jerusalem. Tyre 
alone resisted successfully under the leadership of 
Conrad of Montferrat. In order to win new allies, 
the latter granted the Pisans, in October, 1187, new 
privileges not only at Tyre but also at Jaffa and 
Acco in case they would help him to recover these 
two cities. For Jaffa, these privileges comprised : 
new grants of houses in the vicinity of the port, new 
ovens and baths; the possession of the castle and 
garden of the Patriarch; the right to use their own 
weights and measures; the right to have at the city- 
gates and in the bazaar their own controllers 
authorized to supervise the royal revenue officials 
in their dealings with Pisan merchants and to 
prevent the latter from being unfairly treated; 
exemption for all Pisan citizens living in the 
Pisan quarter from any taxes whatsoever, and for 
those Pisans living outside the Pisan quarter proper 
(extra honorem Pisani Comunis), from all taxes 
except the “ ¢alia”’ destined to be used exclusively 
in the interest of the city-quarter concerned; Pisan 
autonomous consuls or vicecomites to be given 
charge of the administration of all communal affairs 
and of justice in the Pisan quarter, with jurisdiction 


1 ** 1187 Octob., ind. VI. Tyri in domo Hospitalis. Corradus marchio 


in praesencia et consensu supra dictorum Pisants, si Dei auxtilio Joppea 
christianis recepta fuerit, in eadem civitate omnes domos, quas antea 
habuerunt, et etiam usque ad ‘portam portus ex utraque parte viae et 
balnea et furnos, quae habuit et tenuit Lambertus de Joppen Pisanus, 
necnon casale Patriarchae et hortum, qui fuit Gisilberti castellani, et 
eadem privilegia, quae Pisanis Tyri constitutis dederat, concedit et sigillo 
confirmat.’’ (Regesta Regni Hierosolymitant MXCVII-MCCXCI, edidit 
Reinhold Roéhricht, Oeniponti 1893, p. 178). 


CC  ————— 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS 103 


over Pisan nationals in all cases other than grave 
crimes against non-Pisans or matters of feudal law, 
which had to come before the royal courts.’ 

Tyre now became the rallying point of the 
Franks. Thither flocked the garrisons whom 
Saladin had set free after the capitulation of the 
fortresses; thither also came king Guy and most of 
his nobles and knights who, having been made 
prisoners by Saladin, had been released on parole. 
They, however, immediately broke their word,” 
assembled their forces, and laid siege to Acco on 
28th August, 1189; two days later, the besiegers 
were themselves besieged by Saladin. This 
strange situation lasted two years, during which the 
Franks received new reinforcements on several 
occasions; in August, 1190, Henry of Champagne 
landed with 10,000 men; in October, the Duke 
Frederick of Swabia brought about 1,000 men who 
were all that remained of the fine army of the 
emperor Barbarossa drowned in Armenia; in 
October, arrived also an English fleet; in April, 
1191, arrived the French contingent of the third 
Crusade, under king Philip Augustus; and on the 
8th of June the British contingent under Richard 
Coeur-de-Lion.’ Thanks to these reinforcements 
the attack could now be pressed with all vigour both 
inwards and outwards, and on July 12th, Acco 
surrendered. At once the kings of England and 
of France began to quarrel as to who should be 
king over what remained of the kingdom of 
Jerusalem: Conrad of Montferrat, supported by 
Philip, or Guy of Lusignan, backed by Richard. 


1 Schaube, op. cit., pp. 169-170. 
? Lane-Poole, op. cit., p. 209. 
* Lane-Poole, op. cit., pp. 209-210. 


104 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


On the 27th or 28th of July they concluded an 
agreement to the effect that Guy should remain king 
for life, and that Conrad should be his successor, 
also that Guy’s brother, Geoffrey of Lusignan, 
known as Geoffrey with the Big Tooth, should have 
for himself and his heirs the Counties of Jaffa and 
Cesarea. Three days after this decision, Philip 
Augustus began his return to France, leaving 
Richard alone to prosecute the war. 

In the meantime, as soon as Acco had fallen, 
Saladin, seeing part of his army destroyed, whereas 
that of the Franks had become stronger than ever, 
realized that for the present he could do nothing 
except remain on the defensive, and keep all his 
remaining troops together. In the circumstances, 
it was clear that he would not be able to prevent 
the enemy from taking possession of the maritime 
cities. He, therefore, evacuated these towns, after 
having had their walls completely destroyed. This 
was done at Cesarea, Ascalon, Gaza and Jaffa;’ in 
the last-mentioned place even the private houses 
were demolished. 

Saladin then concluded peace with Richard. 
But the latter, exasperated by some delay in the 
carrying-out of the stipulations regarding the 
surrender of Christian prisoners, massacred in cold 
blood, on the 16th of August, 2 »700 Moslem 
prisoners in sight of the two camps. Saladin 
retaliated by a similar treatment of his own 
prisoners. Peace had now become impossible. 
Richard, his rear constantly harassed by Saladin, 


1 Rey, Familles d’Outremer, p. 344 

2 Jacques de Vitry, The History of Jerusalem, P.P.T.S., London,, 
1896, p. 113. 

* Lane-Poole, op. cit., p. 210. 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS 105 


marched down the coast with the intention of 
establishing a new base at Jaffa, and of attacking 
from there Ascalon and Jerusalem. On the 7th of 
September he defeated Saladin at Arsuf and forced 
him to retire into the mountains of Judea; on the 
roth of September, when the English infantry 
reached Jaffa, they found the town in such a ruined 
state that they could not find lodgings in it. The 
army, therefore, encamped outside the walls “in 
an olive garden on the left side of the town . . and 
refreshed themselves with abundance of fruits, figs, 
grapes, pomegranates, and citrons, produced by the 
country around.” Richard at once began to 
rebuild the walls and the towers, and to clear out 
the moat.’ A few days after his arrival at Jaffa, a 
small fleet from England brought thither the two 
queens: Richard’s wife Berengaria, and his sister 
Joan, widow of King William of Sicily, who had 
just died. During his quarrel with Philip Augustus 
at Acco, Richard had been energetically supported 
by the Pisan merchants, who had, moreover, given 
him considerable financial assistance; in return for 
all these services he now, after his arrival at Jaffa, 
by an act of October, 1191, confirmed again the 
privileges which they had been granted in the 
ast.” 
i Previous to the departure of his army from 
England, Richard had issued an order by which no 
one was allowed to take with him on the pilgrimage 
any woman other than a washerwoman against 
whom there could be no suspicion. Similarly, on 


1 Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s Chronicle of Richard the First’s Crusade, in 
Bohn’s Chronicles of the Crusades, London, 1914, pp. 246-247. 

2 Id., p. 248. 

: Schaube, he city Ha 370 


106 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


leaving Acco for Jaffa, he issued a new order com- 
pelling all the dissolute women, who had found 
means of joining the army, to stay behind at Acco; 
once more only the washerwomen were allowed to 
accompany the army. Notwithstanding this 
prohibition, as soon as the army was encamped in 
the gardens of Jaffa, the women appeared in large 
numbers, spread themselves through the camp, and 
made it the theatre of the most shameless 
immorality, which, together with the prolonged 
inactivity of the autumn and winter, soon under- 
mined the men’s discipline. 

Two attempts to march on Jerusalem, one in 
January and the other in June, 1192, brought 
Richard actually in sight of the Holy City, but, in 
each case, the undertaking had to be abandoned 
half-way, partly on account of dissensions among 
the Crusaders themselves, partly by reason of the 
increased strength of Saladin’s army. After the 
second failure in June, Richard lost heart, and, as 
grave news was arriving from England, he retired 
with most of his troops to Acco and began to make 
preparations for a voyage home. Shortly after 
his arrival at Acco, he decided to proceed to Beyrut. 
Saladin, on being informed of this decision, deter- 
mined to take advantage of the opportunity to make 
a dash upon Jaffa. His forces had just been 
considerably increased by the arrival of important 
contingents of fresh troops under the emirs of 
Aleppo, Mesopotamia and Egypt; whilst Jaffa had 
only about 3,000 Christian defenders left.’ 

Leaving Jerusalem with all his forces on 
Thursday, 23rd of July, he encamped before Jaffa 


? Prutz, op. cit., p. 125.—Also Geoffrey de Vinsauf, op. cit., p. 248. 
4M. V. Guérin, La Judée, Vol. I, p. 19. 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS 107 


shertly before noon on Tuesday, 28th. His army 
was drawn up in three divisions, surrounding the 
town on all sides: the right and left wing, 
commanded respectively by El-Melek ez-Zaher and 
FEl-Melek el-Adel, rested on the sea, the Sultan 
himself being in the centre. 

As soon as the people of Jaffa had been informed 
of Saladin’s approach and his intentions, Alberic 
of Reims, whom Richard had left in charge of the 
city as governor, sent at once a swift ship to Acco 
to call the king back. 

On Wednesday morning, 29th July, the attack 
was begun, with the help of two mangonels (stone- 
throwing engines) trained on the weakest part of 
the walls, close to the eastern gate; at the same time, 
miners were set to sink a mine under the same 
eastern wall, in the angle of the curtain adjoining 
the first tower to the north of the east gate. But 
the garrison fought with great energy, and, towards 
evening, as the miners were just finishing their 
mine, the besieged succeeded in destroying it in 
several places. During the night, Saladin had the 
mine repaired and continued, so that it reached 
over the whole length of the section of the wall from 
the tower to the east gate, and he had also a new 
mangonel constructed. 

On the next morning, Thursday, he brought all 
his three mangonels to bear on the portion of the 
wall which had been undermined. Alberic of 
Reims and the Patriarch of Jaffa, seeing that, if the 
attack was continued, the city would be taken 
before king Richard could possibly arrive with help, 
sent two envoys to Saladin to start negotiations for 
peace. Saladin consented to receive the surrender 


* Rey, Les Familles d’Outremer, p. 345. 


108 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


of the city on the same conditions as those which he 
had exacted at the capitulation of Jerusalem: the 
Christians should pay ten dinars for every man, five 
for every woman, and two for every child, and those 
who could not pay were to become prisoners.. The 
Christians accepted these conditions, and asked for 
a two days’ armistice, until Saturday, on which 
day they would carry out the terms of the treaty, if 
by that time they had not received assistance. 
Saladin refused to agree to this delay, and fighting 
was resumed. The mine having been completed, 
it was filled with combustibles; these were set on 
fire, and the wall was brought down over half the 
distance from the east gate northward to the next 
tower. But the men of the garrison had accumu- 
lated large heaps of dry wood behind the whole 
section of the wall under which Saladin’s miners 
had been at work. As soon as the wall gave way, 
they set fire to the wood, and the flames prevented 
the Moslems from effecting an entrance through 
the breach, in spite of all their efforts renewed 
without interruption until the dark put an end to the 
fighting. During the night, Saladin gave orders to 
increase the number of mangonels to five. 

On Friday morning, 31st, all the mangonels had 
been set up, and a great quantity of stones collected, 
to be hurled from these engines. They were 
brought into play on the remaining part of the wall 
which had been undermined. ‘“ The Sultan him- 
self, as well as his son El-Melek ez-Zaher, took an 
active part in the attack, whilst El-Melek el-Adel, 
at the head of the troops of the left wing, attacked 
the city on the opposite side. El-Adel was ill at 
the time. Then a mighty shout was raised, the 


’ Besant and Palmer, op. sit., p. 431. 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS 109 


drums sounded, the trumpets blared, the mangonels 
hurled their stones. . . The miners were actively 
engaged in setting fire to the mines, and the day 
had hardly reached its second hour, when the wall 
fell with a fall like the end of all things...A 
cloud of dust and smoke arose from the fallen wall, 
that darkened the heavens and hid the light of day, 
and none dared to enter the breach and face the fire. 
But when the cloud dispersed, and disclosed the 
wall of halberds and lances replacing the one that 
had just fallen, and closing the breach so effectually 
that even the eye could not penetrate within, then 
indeed we beheld a terrifying sight—the spectacle of 
the enemy’s unwavering constancy, as they stood 
undaunted, unflinching, self-controlled in every 
moment.” Whilst his men continued the defence 
in such heroic manner, Alberic of Reims himself fled 
on board a ship and tried to escape; but “his com- 
panions, reproaching him for his cowardice, recalled 
him to a sense of duty, and absolutely forced him into 
one of the towers.” At last it was decided to make a 
new attempt to gain some time by reopening 
negotiations, and once more two envoys were sent 
to Saladin. His conditions were that “ knight 
should be exchanged for (Moslem) horseman, 
Turkopole for light-armed soldier; and that the old 
people should pay the ransome paid by those at 
Jerusalem.” |The envoys accepted these terms, 
but asked for a one day’s armistice, after the 
expiration of which the surrender would take place. 
Saladin refused to suspend the attack on the city- 
walls, saying that he could not stop his soldiers 

_ * Beha ed-Din, The Life of Saladin, P.P.T.S., London, 1897, pp. 
Nasi Gentcey de Vinsauf, op. ctt., p. 313. 

* Geoffrey de Vinsauf, op. cit., p. 365. 


110 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


from fighting, but that, if the Christians would at 
once retire into the citadel and abandon the town 
to his men, he would wait twenty-four hours for the 
surrender of the citadel itself. The envoys agreed, 
and returned to Jaffa: the Christians abandoned 
the breach, and the Moslems spread through the 
town, taking an enormous booty, massacring the 
inhabitants, smashing the wine-barrels, killing all 
the pigs they could get hold of, and in their fury 
throwing on one heap “the bodies of the pigs 
together with the bodies of the Christians whom 
they had slain.” 

On receiving the news of Saladin’s descent upon 
Jaffa, King Richard, who was on the point of 
embarking for Beyrut, gave up this project and 
decided at once to hasten to the relief of the 
besieged city. Henry of Champagne, with fifty- 
five knights, mostly mounted on mules, hurried 
south by land; whilst Richard himself and his 
English infantry went by sea, but were delayed 
three days at Haifa by contrary winds. The news 
of their departure from Acco was brought on Friday 
afternoon to Saladin, who at once determined to 
obtain at all costs the surrender of the citadel before 
Richard could come to its assistance. But the 
garrison stuck to their delay of twenty-four hours, 
and Saladin’s troops, exhausted from the fighting, 
the massacre and the pillage, had become incapable 
of disciplined action; and so the matter had to be 
postponed to the following day. 

At daybreak on Saturday, 1st of August, Henry 
of Champagne arrived with his handful of knights, 
penetrated into the city, and joined the defenders in 


* Geoffrey de Vinsauf, op. cit., p. 319. 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS Ill 


the citadel.’ During the night the English fleet 
had also arrived at last, and Saladin at once sent 
down a strong force to the shore, to oppose the 
landing. But those on board made no attempt to 
leave their ships. In the morning, the garrison in 
the citadel thought that the people in the ships were 
afraid to land on account of the presence of the 
enemy on the shore. They, therefore, decided to 
create a diversion which would draw the enemy 
away from the sea. Led by Henry of Champagne, 
they sallied forth from the citadel and began 
massacring all the Moslems whom they found in 
the city. Saladin sent troops to the rescue, and the 
Christians were driven back into the citadel. Still 
no sign of activity was shown on the part of the 
fleet. The reason was that Richard, misled by the 
sight of the Moslem banners flying everywhere over 
the city, believed that the citadel itself was already 
taken. “ The noise of the waves, the yells of the 
combatants, and the shouts of the ¢ahlil and takbir 
(‘ There is but one God! God is great !’), prevented 
those on board from hearing their own countrymen’s 
calls.”’ At last the men in the citadel understood 
the reason of the fleet’s inaction; thereupon one of 
the garrison jumped down from the citadel on to 
the sands, where he came down unhurt, ran to the 
edge of the water and got into a galley, which put 
out for him, and which put him on board the king’s 
galley. As soon as Richard heard that the citadel 
was still holding out, he made all speed for the 
shore, his own galley, which was painted red and 
had its deck covered with a red awning, being the 
first to land the men on board.’ The king himself 


* Rey, Les Familles d’Outremer, p. 345. 
? Beha ed-Din, op. cit., p. 370. 
* Beha ed-Din, op. cit., p. 370. 








112 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


at their head, ‘“‘ dashed forward into the waves with 
his thighs unprotected by armour, and up to his 
middle in the water; he soon gained firm footing on 
the dry strand: behind him followed . . all the 
others rushing through the waves. The Turks 
stood to defend the shore, which was covered with 
their numerous troops. The king, with an arbalest 
which he held in his hand, drove them back right 
and left; his companions pressed upon the recoiling 
enemy, whose courage quailed when they saw it was 
the king, and they no longer dared to meet him. 
The king brandished his fierce sword, which 
allowed them no time to resist, but they yield before 
his fiery blows, and are driven in confusion with 
blood and havoc by the king’s men until the shore 
is entirely cleared of them. Then they brought 
together beams, poles, and wood, from the old ships 
and galleys, to make a barricade; and the king 
placed there some knights, servants, and arba- 
lesters, to keep guard and to dislodge the Turks, 
who, seeing that they could no longer oppose our 
troops, dispersed themselves on the shore with cries 
and howlings in one general flight. The king then, 
by a winding chair, which he had remarked in the 
house of the Templars, was the first to enter the 
town, where he found more than 3,000 Turks 
turning over everything in the houses, and carrying 
away the spoil. The brave king had no sooner 
entered the town, than he caused his banners to be © 
hoisted on an eminence, that they might be seen by 
the Christians in the tower (citadel), who taking 
courage at the sight, rushed forth in arms from the 
tower to meet the king, and at the report thereof the 
Turks were thrown into confusion. The king, 
meanwhile, with brandished sword, still pursued 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS 113 


and slaughtered the enemy, who were thus enclosed 
between the two bodies of the Christians, and filled 
the streets with their slain. . . All were slain, 
except such as took to flight in time. . . When 
the Turks leaving the town saw his banners floating 
in the air, a cry was raised on right and left as he 
sallied forth upon them . . . and no hailstorm or 
tempest ever so densely concealed the sky as it was 
then darkened by the flying arrows of the Turks.”’ 

The panic amongst the Moslems was complete. 
Saladin, unable to rally his forces, retired to Yazur, 
his men abandoning most of the booty they had 
made in the pillage of Jaffa. Outside the city, 
meanwhile, “ the bodies of the Christians were now 
buried in peace, whilst those of the Turks were in 
turn cast out to rot with those of the swine.” The 
next three days were spent by the king in repairing 
the breach in the walls.’ 

On the very evening of his victory, Richard 
initiated new peace negotiations, and, on the 2nd of 
September, a truce of three years and eight months 
was signed at Ramleh, by which it was agreed that 
Ascalon should be dismantled, that Jaffa and the 
plains up to the mountains should be left in the 
hands of the Christians, that Christian pilgrims 
should be permitted to visit the holy places at 
Jerusalem, and that Christian merchants should 
enjoy the right of free trade in Palestine. 

Early in August, Richard had been taken 
seriously ill. It is related by one of his biographers 
that whilst he was confined to his bed with a high 
fever, “ word was brought to him that the Duke of 


? Geoffrey de Vinsauf, op. cit., pp. 313-318. 
SAL a: 3 Ps 930. 
“Tay .1,-.320, 


II4 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


Burgundy (who had refused to join him in going to 
the rescue of Jaffa) was taken dangerously ill at 
Acre. ‘The day was the day for the king’s fever to 
take its turn, and through his delight at this report, 
it left him. The king immediately with uplifted 
hands imprecated a curse upon him, saying: ‘ May 
God destroy him, for he would not destroy the 
enemies of our faith with me, although he had long 
served in my pay. On the third day, the duke 
died.” <A few days after the peace was concluded, 
Richard sailed away from Jaffa, leaving Palestine 
for ever. 

In October, Geoffrey de Lusignan similarly 
returned to France, whereupon the County of Jaffa 
reverted to his brother Amaury who had already 
held it once before him, from the hands of Queen 
Sybil and king Guy, during the last year preceding 
the capture of Jaffa by El-Melek el-Adel in 1187. 
In 1194, Amaury having been chosen king of 
Cyprus, the County of Jaffa was taken from him by 
Henry of Champagne who had become king of 
Jerusalem since 1192; but already in the following 
year the king returned it to him as the dowry of his 
daughter Alix who was to be married to Amaury’s 
son Hugh.’ 

The same year 1195, the emperor Henry VI took 
the cross. Aided by the dukes of Saxony and 
Brabant, he collected an army of 60,000 men, the 
first contingent of which, under the bishop of 
Wurzburg, arrived at Acco in September, 1197. 
Their interference in Palestine affairs was strongly 


* Chronicle of Richard of Devizes, concerning the Deeds of King 
Richard the First, King Av England (in Bohn’s Chronicles of the 
Crusades, London, 1914), p. 56. 

2 Rey, Familles d’ Outremer, p- 346. 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS II5 


disliked by the French barons of Henry of 
Champagne, and so the Germans found themselves 
acting alone. Without waiting for the arrival of the 
Saxons and Brabanters, who had been delayed on 
the sea journey, they advanced into the mountains 
of Nablus, only to be defeated by El-Melek el-Adel 
(who succeeded his brother Saladin at the latter’s 
death in 1193). El-Adel at once laid siege to 
Jaffa. Amaury sent from Cyprus a certain Renaud 
Barlais as governor into the besieged city; but he 
proved utterly incapable.” The garrison, under his 
leadership, made a sortie, and fell into an ambush; 
the Moslems made themselves masters of the city. 
The walls were razed, and 20,000 Christians are 
said to have been put to the sword.’ Defeated in 
his turn a few months later by the Saxons and the 
Brabanters, El-Adel was unable to prevent the 
Germans from re-occupying Jaffa. They rebuilt 
the walls and prepared themselves for a long stay; 
but in the following year on receiving the news of 
their emperor’s death, they returned home, leaving 
only a small garrison behind them in Jaffa. On 
the rith of November, 1198, the latter were 
celebrating the feast of St. Martin when, in the 
midst of an orgy of drunkenness and debauchery, 
they were surprised by the Moslems and massacred.’ 
This was the end of the fourth (German) Crusade. 

In 1204, the armies of the fifth Crusade landed 
in the Delta and penetrated as far as the Rosetta 
branch of the Nile, massacring the inhabitants 
everywhere. El-Adel, who was weakened by inner 
quarrels of his family, was unable to repel the 

1 Rey, Familles d’Outremer, p. 346. 

2 Munk, Palestine, p. 632. 


’ Michaud, Histoire des Croisades, Vol. II, p. 68.—Also Guérin, 
Judée, p. 20. 


116 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


invaders by force of arms, and concluded with them 
a treaty by which Jaffa was once more returned to 
the Christians.’ 

In 1227, Walter of Brienne in Champagne being 
Count of Jaffa,’ the emperor Frederick II, the 
originator and leader of the seventh Crusade, 
arrived in Palestine. He had married, in 1225, 
Yolande de Brienne, the daughter of the titular 
king of Jerusalem John de Brienne, emperor of 
Constantinople, and a cousin of the Count of Jaffa. 
He brought with him only six hundred knights, 
being determined to achieve his objects by negotia- 
tion. On the 20th of February, 1229, he concluded 
with El-Adel’s successor, El-KAmil, a truce of ten 
years and ten months, by which Jerusalem (except 
the Haram), Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the pilgrim 
road from Jerusalem to Jaffa were surrendered to 
Frederick as King of Jerusalem, who was also con- 
firmed in the possession of Jaffa.” In 1228, he had 
spent several months at Jaffa, and had begun to 
repair its walls,’ to which two new towers were 
added in 1229 or 1230 by the Patriarch of 
Jerusalem, who had consecrated the emperor as king 
of Jerusalem. During the latter part of 1228 the 
emperor had discontinued the work because he had 
found that it constituted a serious obstacle in his 
peace negotiations with the Sultan.’ It is either to 
the repair of the walls or to the construction of these 


* Cl. Huart, Geschichte der Araber, 1915, Vol. II, p. 21.—Also 
Lane-Poole, op. cit., p. 218. 

? Rey, Families d’Outremer, p. 347. 

* Lane-Poole, op. cit., p. 225. 

* Lane-Poole, op. cit., p. 227.—Also Conder, Latin Kingdom, pp. 
312-313. i 

® Guérin, La Judée, p. 20. 

* Dominique Jauna, Histoire Générale des Roiaumes de Chypre, de 
Jérusalem, d’Arménie, et d’Egypte, Lejden, 1747, Book X, ch. iii. 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS 117 


towers that the fragment of an inscribed marble 
block, which was found some fifty years ago, serving 
as cover to a sewer in one of the streets of Jaffa, 
appears to belong (fig. 10). The inscription is very 





FIGURE 10 


defective. There are only two imperfect lines left, 
together with the remains of a third one. The 
following restoration has been suggested :—’ 


Fredericus, Romanorum imperator semp er 
Augustus, I erusalem rex, etc. 
anno domin ice incarnati onis 
ti? BM re awe 

In 1233, the Count of Jaffa, Walter of Brienne, 
married Mary, a daughter of Hugh I, king of 
Cyprus, and of Alix of Jerusalem.’ 

In 1244, Palestine was invaded by the Kharez- 
mians, a wild Turkish people originating in the 
steppes east of the Caspian Sea, whose assistance 
had been invited against Damascus by the sultan 
of Egypt. They came down in hordes, captured 
Jerusalem, and pillaged the maritime plain. To 
oppose them, the sultan of Damascus, El-Melek 


* Ch. Clermont-Ganneau, Archeological Researches in Palestine 
during the years 1873-1874, London, 1896, Vol. II, pp. 155-156. 
? Rey, Famiiles d’Outremer, p. 348. 


118 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


el-Mansir, concluded an alliance with the 
Christians, and together they marched south to meet 
the Kharezmians who were then encamped near 
Gaza. On their way thither the allied army rested 
under the walls of Jaffa, and the barons asked 
Walter of Brienne, the Count of Jaffa, to march 
with them. The Count had been, some time 
previously, excommunicated by the Patriarch for 
having refused to surrender to him one of the towers 
of the fortress, called the Tower of the Patriarch 
(probably one of those built by him in 1229 or 1230), 
which this prelate claimed as his property. To the 
entreaties of the barons, Walter replied that he 
would gladly join them if only the Patriarch would 
absolve him from the excommunication. The Patri- 
arch, however, refused to doso; Walter nevertheless 
marched with the barons against the Kharezmians.° 
In a two days’ battle at Gaza the army of the 
Christians and the Damascenes was defeated, in 
October, 1244. Walter of Brienne was made a 
prisoner, and the Kharezmians brought him to 
Jaffa, which they besieged. As the siege was pro- 
longing itself, they hung the Count by the arms to 
a gallows opposite the city walls, and called out to 
the people of Jaffa that they would not take him 
down until the town surrendered. Walter, how- 
ever, exhorted his people never to surrender the 
city, no matter what the enemy would do to him.’ 
The Kharezmians, baffled in their purpose, with- 
drew and took the Count with them to Cairo, where 
he was murdered by the mob. They later quarrelled 


* Joinville’s Chronicle of the Crusade of St. Lewis, in Memoirs of 
the Crusades, Everyman’s Library, London, 1921, p. 268. 
hE AG RE Ne 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS 119 


with their allies, and retired to Asia Minor, leaving 
Palestine under the rule of the sultans of Egypt. 

The news of the Kharezmian invasion prompted 
the king of France, Louis IX (Saint-Louis) to 
undertake his Crusade. He left Europe in 1248, 
stayed the winter in Cyprus, and invaded Egypt in 
the spring 1249. Defeated there in April, 1250, 
and made prisoner, he was released against payment 
of a heavy ransom, and concluded with the sultan 
of Egypt a treaty by which the Christians of 
Palestine were left in possession of several 
maritime cities, including Jaffa. 

The County of Jaffa was now given by the king 
of Cyprus to John of Ibelin; there is still in 
existence a letter of the pope Innocent IV, dated 
26th March, 1252, confirming this donation.” The 
Count took an active part in the composition of the 
famous treatise of Laws known as the “Assizes of 
Jerusalem,‘ which mentions as the author of some 
of its most important sections “John of Ybelin, 
Count of Jaffa and Ascalon, and lord of Rames 
(Ramleh.”) He had married Mary, daughter of 
Constant, regent of Armenia, and of Etiennette, 
the first wife of Hugh I, king of Cyprus.’ 

Saint Louis landed at Acco in May, 1250, went 
to Czesarea, which he fortified, and then proceeded 
to Jaffa. The town was then without walls, the 
only fortifications in existence being those of the 
citadel itself. At the news of the king’s impending 
arrival, the Count of Jaffa decorated the citadel in 
his honour. “At each of the battlements—of which 
there were full five hundred—he set a shield, with 
his arms, and a pennon; and this thing was fair to 


1 Rey, Familles d’Outremer, p. 348. 
Tr atig De Behe 


120 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


see, for his arms were ov with a cross gules patté.’” 
The French army was encamped in the gardens 
surrounding the town, and king Louis at once set 
himself to rebuild its walls, taking part himself in 
the work in order to gain the indulgence which had 
been promised to him by the Church for this 
meritorious work.” He did not rest until the walls 
were completed all around the town and down to 
the sea shore both north and south of it. Twenty- 
four towers were built into the walls; and the ditch 
was cleaned out and its sides strengthened by being 
puddled with loam. We have no record of the 
sums spent by Saint Louis on these fortifications ; 
but we are told by Joinville, an eye-witness, that 
one tower and the adjoining portion of the wall 
which were built by the Patriarch, cost this prelate 
about thirty thousand livres. At this rate the whole 
wall with its twenty-four towers and the ditch must 
have cost close on a million livres,’ or about 
41,000,000 of our money. He also founded at 
Jaffa the convent of the Cordeliers’ (the French 
Franciscans), and caused them to build a church.’ 
It was during her stay in Jaffa with the king, that the 
queen, Margaret of Provence, gave birth to a 
daughter, named Blanche. Immediately after the 
queen’s confinement, King Louis went to Saida, 
the queen following him thither a few weeks later. 
This was towards the end of 1253. Early in 1254, 
the news arrived of the death of the king’s mother, 
Blanche of Castile, who had acted as regent in his 
absence, whereupon he returned to France. 
* Joinville, op. cit., p. 265. 
7c) o.a6e. 


hak ER Bla be 


* Rey, Les Colonies Franques de Syrie aux XIIéme et XIIIéme 
Siécles, Paris, 1883, p. 411. 
5 Clermont-Ganneau, in P.E.F.Q.S., 1874, p. 274. 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS 121 


In the spring, 1260, Syria and Palestine were 
invaded and the Ayoubid sultanate of Damascus 
abolished by the Tatar tribes under Hulagu, the 
khan of Persia. Buibars, the general-in-chief of the 
Egyptian sultan Kotuz, met them on the Egyptian 
frontier, drove them back, defeated them in 
September on the plain of Esdraelon, and occupied 
Damascus. On his return home a few months 
later, he took a leading part in the assassination of 
Kotuz, and became sultan of Egypt in his stead, 
Once again, as in the time of Saladin, the Franks 
were surrounded on all sides by countries united in 
the hands of a devout Moslem, determined to expel 
the Christians from Palestine; but, unlike Saladin, 
Bibars was cruel and fanatical, and resolved not to 
stop half-way in the execution of his programme. 

John of Ibelin had concluded some years 
previously a truce with En-Nasir, the last Ayoubid 
sultan of Damascus; in 1261, Bibars, in a personal 
interview with the Count of Jaffa, confirmed this 
truce, and observed it until the Count’s death 
(which occurred in 1266), notwithstanding the 
almost annual campaigns which he waged against 
the Christians in Palestine during the whole period 
from 1261 onwards. By the end of 1267 he had 
conquered the whole of Palestine with the exception 
of Acco and Jaffa, and destroyed most of the 
maritime cities, in order to prevent future enemies 
from using them as landing-places. On the 7th of 
March, 1268,’ he at last attacked Jaffa, and carried 
it in one day; he expelled the population, and razed 
the whole town: the walls, the houses, and the 
citadel. The fine marbles derived from the 


? Clermont-Ganneau, in P.E.F.Q.S., 1874, p. 271. 


122 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


demolition of the houses’ were transported by ship 
to Egypt, and were used to decorate the mosques 
of Cairo’, and especially the new mosque built by 
Bibars during the years 1267-1269.’ 

In 1291, Bibars’ grandson Khalil captured Acco, 
the last stronghold of the Christians, and thereby 
made an end of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. 

The “County of Jaffa” did not cease to exist, as 
a title, with the destruction of the town and the 
disappearance of the Latin kingdom. Hugh 
d’Ibelin, Count of Jaffa and Ascalon, Seigneur of 
Rama and Seneschal of Jerusalem, is known to have 
married in 1338 Isabella d’Ibelin, widow of 
Ferdinand of Majorca.” In the seventies of the 
fifteenth century, Caterina Cornaro, the Venetian 
wife of James de Lusignan, king of Cyprus, and 
after his death “queen of Cyprus, Jerusalem and 
Armenia,’ invested with the Countship of Jatta a 
Venetian patrician of the family of Contarini.’ The 
Contarini dallo Zaffo or di Giaffo became one of the 
most important branches of this family; more than 
a century later, the title was still in existence at 
Venice, and, in 1644, the Counts of Jaffa are found 


? Of the beauty of the buildings of the time it is possible to form an 
idea by the description which an Arab traveller wrote of Ramleh, already 
two centuries earlier: ‘‘ In the city of Ramleh there is marble in plenty, 
and most of the buildings, and private houses are of this material; and, 
further, the surface thereof they do most beautifully sculpture and orna- 
ment. ... The marbles that I saw here were of all colours, some varie- 
gated, some green, red, black and white.’’ (Ndasir-i-Khusrau’s Diary of 
a Journey through Syria and Palestine in 4.D. 1047, P.P.T.S., London, 
1893, pp. 21-22.) 

? Lane-Poole, op. cit., p. 268. 

* Makrizi, quoted by Ernst Diez, Die Kunst der Islamischen Vélker, 
Berlin, 1915, p. 58. 

4 Ludolph von Suchem’s Description of the Holy Land (1350), 
P.P.T.S., London, p. 49. 

/ Encyclopedic Britannica, article ‘* Contarini.’ 

° Kootwijk, Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum et Roeser Antwerp, 
1619, Book II, ch. i, p. 136. 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS 123 


at Cyprus among the noble families “that are still 
existing in the country since the time of the kings.’” 

The period of the Latin kingdom had been one 
of great commercial and agricultural prosperity for 
the coastal towns and plain, and especially for Jaffa, 
which remained the principal commercial and 
military port of the country as long as the Christians 
kept possession of Jerusalem; in later times, when 
Jerusalem was lost, Acco became the chief military 
port, but, commercially, Jaffa kept the first rank, 
both for the traffic of goods and for that of the 
pilgrims. 

The Count of Jaffa had the right to keep a court, 
to coin money, and to dispense justice. There 
were two courts of justice: the Court of Burgesses 
Cour de Bourgeoisie), to judge the townsmen and 

ranks not of gentle birth, and a native Court under 
a vais, or native “head” with a council or jury of 
twelve natives. In later times, on account of the 
corruption prevalent in this native Court, it had to 
be abolished and was replaced by the Cour de la 
Fonde, which judged chiefly commercial cases, and 
which was composed of four natives and two 
Franks. Court of the Chain (Cour de la Chaine), 
from the chains which closed the harbour, was the 
name given to the customs house; its native name 
diwdn gave origin to the French douane. In its 
precincts as well as in those of the foxde, which was 
a sort of exchange, the merchants came together 
and treated of their businesses.” 

The city was divided into two parts: the high- 





* Christoph Fuerers von Haimendorff, Reis- Pheer in Egypten, 
Avabien, Palestinam, Syrien, etc., Niirnberg, 1646, p. 308. 

? Rey, Familles ‘a Outremer, D. 352. 

* Conder, Latin Kingdom, pp. 172-173. 

* Rey, Colonies Franques, pp. 189-192. 


124 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


town, which was represented by the Castle or 
Citadel, and the new-town or New-burgh (Bourg- 
Neuf). Within the enclosure of the citadel were 
situated the church of St. Peter, and the two chapels 
of the Holy Cross and of St. Lawrence.’ 

The port was never considered safe, and when 
the Venetians began to frequent Jaffa regularly, 
they built a mole, of which the remains were still 
visible in the eighteenth century. Jaffa was 
generally the last port visited by the European 
trading vessels on their tour in the Levant; here 
they used to stay a sufficient time to allow the 
pilgrims to visit Jerusalem, after which they would 
leave on their return voyage straight for Italy, 
France, or England. Single ships would call at 
Jaffa at any time of the year, but the large trading- 
fleets of the Italian republics made the journey once 
or twice only every year. Such fleets, which com- 
prised also special pilgrims’ ships, were called 
caravans; they were convoyed by armed escorts and 
travelled under the command of an official repre- 
sentative of their government. Venice used to 
send out two caravans every year: one would arrive 
at Jaffa about Easter, the other in the autumn. The 
Genoese sent one fleet only, which sailed in 
September, and spent the winter in the Levant. 

The goods imported from Europe were chiefly 
dried fruit and preserved foodstuffs, wrought and 
unwrought metals, timber, linen and woollens; 
amongst the goods exported from Jaffa were sugar, 
cotton, flax, indigo, saffron, the spices and drugs of 
Arabia (which were brought to Jaffa by the road 


connecting that town with Kerak vz@ Jerusalem and 


1 Rey, Colonies Franques, pp. 410-411. 
? Cunningham Geikie, The Holy Land and the Bible, 1887, p. 4. 


JAFFA UNDER THE FRANKS 125 


Jericho), and the products of the special industries 
of Jaffa itself: soap, fine pottery, and glass. The 
pottery and glass turned out by the Jaffa factories 
comprised lamps, jars, jugs, cups, dishes, plates, 
bottles; they were made of a siliceous clay, covered 
with enamel: white inscriptions in Oriental char- 
acters or many-coloured arabesques on a generally 
turquoise-blue or green background. This 
important pottery and glass industry of Jaffa was 
practised almost exclusively by Jewish artisans’; the 
introduction of its products into southern France 
from the end of the twelfth century onwards exerted 
a strong influence on the development of French 
ceramic art.’ 

The bankers of the time of the Latin kingdom 
were the Italians, and the Knights Hospitallers and 
Templars. A famous Jaffa banker whose name has 


been preserved, was one Bertone di Rescoro, of 
Pisa.” 


1 Rey, Colonies Franques, pp. 211-212. 
Sua. Pt 24, 
* Id., pp. 265-266. 


CHAR TE RO gt 


JAFFA UNDER EGYPTIAN RULE 
(A.D. 1268-1516). 


After its destruction at the hands of Bibars in 
1268, Jaffa did not long remain in ruins. After a 
short time, the population returned, the houses were 
rebuilt, even the citadel and the walls were repaired. 
Shipping and trade quickly resumed their normal 
course, and the foreign merchants, especially the 
Italians, took up again their activities in their own 
quarters, as before. In 1321, the Arab geographer, 
Abulfeda, described Jaffa as a small but pleasant 
town, well fortfied; its bazaars are frequented by 
many merchants; the harbour is visited by “ all the 
ships coming to Palestine, and from it they set sail 
to all lands.” A great fair took place every year 
at Nebi-Rubin, about 9 miles south of Jaffa, to which 
a large number of merchants used to flock from 
many foreign countries. In 1334, Jaffa was visited 
by the Jewish traveller, Rabbi Isaac Chelo, who has 
left us the following valuable description of it: 
“* Jaffa is the beauty of the seas. It is the seat of a 
rather important trade, and the population is large 
and wealthy. Amongst the articles which are the 
most important objects of the commerce of Jaffa 
are olive oil, spun cotton, scented soap, glass vases, 

+ Abulfeda, quoted by Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, 


London, 1890, p. 551. 
? Conder, Syrian Stone Lore, p. 448. 


126 


JAFFA UNDER EGYPTIAN RULE 127 


dyed fabrics, dried fruits, etc. The Jews of this 
town have a beautiful synagogue containing a large 
number of very old and very fine books of the Law. 
Adjoining this synagogue there are a school and a 
library; but there are few learned men at Jaffa, so 
that the school is but little frequented, and the 
library still less. The books are a donation from an 
old rabbi who died at Jaffa, and who gave them to 
the community on condition that they were not to be 
sold but must be lodged in a suitable building near 
the synagogue; he also left the necessary funds for 
the construction of the building.”” In 1335 the 
Emir Jemal ed-Din ibn-Isheik founded the wely 
(Moslem sanctuary) known as the “ kubbet Sheikh 
Murad,” which still exists to-day and is situated to 
the east of the suburb called the Saket Abu-Kebir.’ 

The fall of Acco had at first failed to rouse the 
European powers to a new effort against Islam. 
It was not long, however, before the Crusading 
spirit awoke again. In 1307, the Venetian traveller 
and geographer, Marino Sanuto, offered to the pope 
his famous treatise, ‘‘ Secreta Fidelium Crucis,’ as 
a manual for true Crusaders who desired the recon- 
quest of the Holy Land. The same year also, one 
Hayton presented the pope with a detailed project 
for a new Crusade, in which the occupation of 
Jaffa by a Christian fleet was proposed as the 
first essential step to be taken.” The same year 
again, Pierre Dubois submitted to king Edward I 
of England a pamphlet “ De recuparatione Sanctae 

1 Izhak Chelo, O°5w 9.2 5°29 n7 Les Chemins de Jérusalem 
(1334). 4 ranslated from the Hebrew into French by E. Carmoly in his 
Itinéraires de la Terre Sainte, Brussels, 1847, p. 248. 

? See letter from Clermont-Ganneau in P.E.F. 0. S., 1874, pp. 270- 
gist * J. Delaville Le Roulx, La France en Orient au XIVéme Siécle, 
Paris, 1885, pp. 64-65 and 70. 


128 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


E 


Terrae.’’ Inthe summer 1332, the king of France 
Philip VI took the Cross, and the new Crusade 
became the subject of a serious discussion at his 
court, but no steps were as yet taken to carry the 
project into execution. At last in 1334 pope 
John XXII, alarmed by the signs of the approaching 
conflict between France and England, made an 
attempt to divert to other objects the warlike spirit 
that was pervading the two countries, and proposed 
an immediate Crusade; both kings accepted, levied 
taxes for the purpose and collected troops.. The 
pope appointed the king of France captain-general 
of the Crusade. A treaty was concluded with 
Venice for the supply of the required ships, and 
stores were collected in several Mediterranean 
ports. In the spring of 1336, Philip VI, accom- 
panied by the kings of Navarra and of Bohemia, 
visited the newly-elected pope Benedict XII at 
Avignon. The kings of Aragon and of Sicily were 
present at this conference, and on Good Friday 
the pope delivered a sermon in favour of the 
Crusade. Shortly afterwards Philip went to 
Marseilles to inspect the fleet.” As soon as the 
news of these preparations became known in 
Egypt, the sultan En-Nasir Nasir-ed-Din 
Mohammed gave orders to destroy the mole and 

1 Some ten years after the destruction of Jaffa by Bibars, a Fran- 
ciscan monk, Fidentius of Padua, had, at the request made to him at the 
Council of Lyon in 1274 by pope Gregory X, composed a project for a 
Crusade, in which he had explained the necessity, if the Crusade suc- 
ceeded, of maintaining a permanent army of sufficient strength in 
Palestine, and of fortifying the cliffs of Jaffa. (Delaville Le Roulx, 
OD. Cin, 25.) 

2 Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire générale du IVe Siécle a nos 'Jours, 
Paris, 1894, Tome III, p. 69. 

’ Histoire de France d’Anquetil, continuée, depuis la Révolution de 
1789, jusqu’ a celle de 1830, par Léonard Gallois, Paris, Vol. I, p. 256. 


‘ Louis Bréhier, L’Eglise et l’Orient au Moyen Age. Les Croisades, 
2zeme édition, Paris, 1907, p. 267. 


JAFFA UNDER EGYPTIAN RULE 129 


the quay of the port of Jaffa,’ and prohibited 
any further landing of pilgrims there.” But, if the 
port was destroyed, the town itself remained intact; 
for Ludolph von Suchem, who visited it in 1340, 
describes it still as being “an exceeding ancient 
and beauteous city,’ and as “ still fairly peopled.” 
The sultan’s fears had been in vain, and the 
destruction of the port of Jaffa served no useful 
purpose. Before the Crusade could be launched, 
the year 1337 saw the beginning of what became 
the Hundred Years’ War between France and 
England. 

From the date of Ludolph von Suchem’s visit 
(1340) until 1395 we possess no description of Jaffa 
nor any records concerning its fate. In 1395, the 
place was visited by the Baron d’Anglure, a French 
nobleman, who left a description of it in the account 
which he wrote of his pilgrimage. By his time the 
landing prohibition had been removed, and Jaffa 
had again become the ordinary place of dis- 
embarkation for pilgrims; but the town itself was 
completely destroyed and entirely uninhabited, 
and the only place where the pilgrims could find 
shelter for the night was in an abandoned chapel 
of the church of St. Peter,’ the remains of which 
were still recognizable amongst the ruins of the 
citadel.” Of the causes which brought about this 
utter ruin of the once beautiful and wealthy city we 


* Ludolph von Suchem, op. cit., p. 49: ‘* Once the common pilgrim- 
way passed through this city, but, shortly before my time, the Soldan 
laid waste the port out of fear of the king of France.”’ 

2 Id., id., p. 65, *‘ pilgrims are not able to land there.”’ 

dts, $40.3) ei OS) 

Sia. td, 0.40. 

5 Le Saint- Voyage de Jérusalem, par le Baron d’Anglure, 1395, 
Paris, 1858, pp. 50-51. 

®° Rey, Colonies Franques, p. 410. 


130 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


know nothing positive; we can only surmise that 
the destruction was the act of the only Crusader 
who actually carried war into Palestine during the 
fourteenth century, namely, Peter I, king of 
Cyprus, who sacked Alexandria in 1365, and 
ravaged the coasts of Palestine and Syria in 1367. 

The destruction was so complete that not a 
single house remained intact; and the recollection 
of the cruelties which no doubt accompanied the 
pillage remained so vivid in the memory of the 
people, that for three centuries no attempt was 
made to rebuild the ruined city. The site, how- 
ever, did not cease to remain an important landing- 
place for pilgrims and for goods; with regard to 
the latter, the merchants had merely moved further 
inland and had established themselves at Ramleh. 
John Poloner, who visited Jaffa in 1422, did not see 
there one single human being.” In 1432, the 
Frenchman Bertrandon de la Brocquiére finds there 
“only a few tents covered with reeds, whither 
pilgrims retire to shelter themselves from the sun.” 
Of these tents no further mention is made after 
that date; henceforth the pilgrims are lodged in 
three or four half-ruined vaults which were situated 
in the slope of the hill above the shore, and had 
been cleared of debris. The two towers of the 
citadel which, although in a very ruined state, had 





+ Voyaige d’Oultremer en Jherusalem, par le Seigneur de Caumont 
Van MCCCCXVIII, publié pour la premiére fois d’aprés le manuscrit 
du Musée Britannique par le Marquis de la Grange, Paris, 1858, p. 46: 
‘* quant a present, n’y a nulle habitacion.”’ 

* John Poloner’s Description of the Holy Land (c. A.D. 1421), 
P.P.T.S., London, 1894, p. 29: ‘* In this city I did not see any living 
man.”’ 

* The Travels of Bertrandon de la Brocquiére A.D. 1432-1433, in 
Early Travels in Palestine, London, Bohn, 1848, p. 286. 

* Die Jerusalemfahrt des Kanonikus Ulrich Brenner vom Haugstift 
in Wiirsburg (1470), herausgegeben von Reinhold Rohricht Z.D.P.V., 


1906, p. 27. 


JAFFA UNDER EGYPTIAN RULE 131 


remained standing, had been slightly repaired and 
were inhabited by a small military guard.” Of the 
rudeness of the soldiers towards the pilgrims, and 
of the filthy state in which the vaults were kept, it 
was alleged with the express intention of 
humiliating the Christians, many travellers have 
left bitter complaints. “I have hardly anywhere 
seen such great ruins as here, and I wondered how 
they could have thrown down such thick walls. 
Just at the entrance as one comes up from the sea 
they have left two vaulted buildings standing, 
which are cut out of the hill itself, and are covered 
above with earth and ruins: wherefore it is always 
damp in those vaults, and water drips down from 
above, the walls are wet, the foundation muddy, and 
all the year round the place is used by the Saracens 
as acommon sewer. Into this sewer they thrust the 
Christian pilgrims, as has been said: but what 
especially troubles the pilgrims who are confined 
there is that as you enter the cave the vault is 
broken, and great stones hang threatening to fall 
upon their heads, so that a push of one’s finger 
would bring down a great heap of stones, and it is 
beneath these dangerous ruins that the pilgrims are 
forced to go in and out continually.” The vaults 
are called by the pilgrims “ St. Peter’s cellars.” 
The painter Erhard Rewich, of Utrecht, who 
accompanied the Dean Bernhard von Breitenbach, 


* Die Jerusalemfahrt des Kanonikus Ulrich Brenner vom Haugstift 
in Wiirzburg (1470), herausgegeben von Reinhold Rohricht Z.D.P.V., 
1906, p. 26. 

2 yd mann nwa mwdi ons Waa oSwn ‘3d yor ana 
Relation of the Journey of Rabbi Meshullam ben Menahem of Volterra 
in the year 5245 (A.D. 1481). Hebrew manuscript in the Bibliotheca 
Laurentiana at Florence, published for the first time by Luncz in his 
Jerusalem I, pp. 166-219. 

* The Book of the Wanderings of Brother Felix Fabri (circa A.D. 
1480-1483), P.P.T.S., London, 1893, p. 238. 

Sas, Daan, 


12 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


of Mayence, on his pilgrimage to Palestine, and 
visited Jaffa with him in 1483, has included a sketch 
of these vaults and of the two towers (fig. 11) in 
the large Palestine map which was published by the 
Dean, after their return to Mayence, in what 
happens to have been the first book ever printed 
with illustrations in woodcuts.. Even princes and 
reigning monarchs, if they were Christians, had to 
be satisfied with the shelter of these vaults, as we 
see from the account of the pilgrimage of the Duke 
Henry the Pious of Saxony in 1498: “ we pilgrims 
went ashore and rested the same night in a vaulted 
stone hole by the sea.’” 


1 Die Paldstinakarte Bernhard von Breitenbach’s, von Reinhold 
Rohricht, Z.D.P.V., 1901, pp. 128 f. 

2 Die Jerusalemfahrt des Herzogs Heinrich des Frommen von 
Sachsen (1498), von Reinhold Rohricht, Z.D.P.V., 1901, pp. 8-9. 


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JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS (1516-1917) AND UNDER 
THE BRITISH OCCUPATION AND MANDATE 
(SINCE 1917). 


The defeat of the Mameluk sultan Kansu el-Ghuri, 
and the conquest of Egypt and Palestine by the Turks 
under Selim I in 1516, did not bring about any 
change in the state of the ruined city of Jaffa. In 
1575 the German botanist, Leonard Rauwolff, did 
not yet find there a single house, and in 1586 the 
Belgian chevalier Jean Zvallaert found the town in 
the following state: “ The haven was, in times 
bygone, walled all around, except towards the 
north, where was the entrance: the remains of the 
said walls can be seen to the present day emerging 
slightly out of the water, like reefs. . . . Parts 
of the city walls can be seen lying on the ground: 
the best preserved parts to be found are two small 
square towers, one larger than the other, which were 
repaired a few years ago, with windows and battle- 
ments, and into which several pieces of 1ron cannon 
and harquebuses have been placed: and there 
reside at present the guards of the port. There are 
also certain vaulted grottoes, used for cellars, which 
seem to have been warehouses for storing the goods 


1 Dr. Leonhart Rauwolff’s Itinerary into the Eastern Countries, as 
Syria, Palestine, or the Holy Land, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Assyria, 
Chaldea, etc. Translated from the Dutch by Nicholas Staphorst. In 
John Ray, “‘A Collection of Curious Travels and Voyages,’’ London, 1693, 
p. 266. 


133 K 


134 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


that were landed here. These grottoes or caverns 
are four in number, in the first of which they sell 
salt, grain and vegetables; the second has its 
entrance walled up, I know not why; in the third 
and the fourth, they themselves dwell, and shelter 
at noon, or on hot days, their animals, equally do 
they cause pilgrims to stay there on their arrival, 
and in this said fourth one was our dwelling, which 
is in width and height about twenty feet, and fifty in 
depth ke. Vay and: they appearito have deen 
much longer and extending further to the sea than 
they do at present.” 

In 1598, the traveller Johannes Kootwiyck still 
found on the semi-circle of flat reefs which surround 
the birket el-kamar (the basin of the moon) to the 
south of the town, a number of stone columns 
pointing to the existence there, at one time, of a 
landing place and warehouses; he also observed on 
the line of reefs which le in front of the promon- 
tory, traces of an ancient mole. The drawing 
which he made of Jaffa is reproduced in fig. 12. 
In 1602, a Dutch pilgrim’ mentions the presence, 
in Jaffa, of merchants trading in cotton; but 
they had come there only to meet a ship, and 
spent the night in the open. The author volunteers 
the details that, of the two towers on the top of the 
hill, the southern one was higher and wider, and 
the northern one somewhat narrower; and that 
both were square-shaped, and without roof. He 


1 Le tres devot Voyage de Jerusalem, fait par Jean Svallaert, 
Chevalier du Saint-Sépulcre de Notre Seigneur, Mayeur de la ville d’Ath 
en Haynaut, etc., Anvers, 1608, Livre III, pp. 3-6. (He visited Jaffa in 
August, 1586.) 

2 Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum et Syriacum, Auctore Joanne 
Cotovico. Antverpiae MDCXIX, Liber II, cap. perez fe 

* Ferdinand Mithlau, Martinus Seusenius’ Reise in das Heilige Land 
1602/3, Z.D.P.V., 1903, pp. 21-24. 


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JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS 135 


adds that the land close to the town 1s very fertile, 
and that what keeps the people of the neighbour- 
hood from cultivating that land and from settling 
again in the ruined city is the fear of the pirates 
who molest these shores. 

Some fifteen or twenty years later, the English- 
man Andrew Crooke still finds things in the same 
state: “ Of the city there is no part standing more 
than two little towers: wherein are certain harque- 
buses acrock for the safeguard of the harbour. 
Under the cliffe, and opening into the haven, are 
certaine spacious caves hewne into the rocke : some 
used for ware-houses, and others for shelter. The 
merchandises here embarqued for Christendome 
are only cotton: gathered by certaine Frenchmen 
who reside at Rama in the house of Sion. The 
western pilgrims do for the most part arrive at this 
place, and are from hence conducted to 
Jerusalem.” 

Towards the year 1642, Franciscan monks 
established themselves amidst the ruins, and, 1 
order to provide a more decent shelter for pilgrims, 
they built a few rooms in front of, and around the 
vaults which have been described before; but the 
Turks accused them of intending to build a 
fortress, and compelled them to pull down again 
all they had built.” A German pilgrim who stayed 
in the building in 1644, apparently just before its 
demolition, describes it as follows: “‘A house, which 
they call the Casa di Franchi; it is rather large in 


* A Relation of a Journey begun An. Dom. 1610. Foure bookes. 
Containing a description of the Turkish Empire, of Aegypt, of the Holy 
Land, of the Remote parts of Italy and Ilands adioyning. The fourth 
edition. London, Printed for Andrew Crooke, 1637, p. 153. 

2 Relation d’un voyage fait au Levant, par M. de Thévenot, Paris, 
1665, Vol. I, p. 416. 


136 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


size; inside there are vaults everywhere, wherein 
the pilgrims are allowed to lie down . . .; it 
contains a fine cistern. The building has, however, 
not been completed, but is collapsing again; and, 
in order to prevent the Turks and Moors from 
practising their vexations and from placing their 
horses and other cattle in the house, it has so low 
an entrance that a man must stoop down very low 
to pass it. Many coats of arms of pilgrims are to 
be found there, cut in the stone.” 

About the same time, the Turks built a third 
tower, of round shape, on the top of the hill,” and 
augmented the garrison. ‘The consequence of the 
increased protection thus given was that immedi- 
ately people began to encamp at Jaffa in a more or 
less permanent manner, and in 1644, there were 
already in existence some fifty to sixty huts in which 
trade was carried on between foreign merchants and 
the people of the district. But as late as 1647, 
there were still no permanent buildings in evidence; 
Monconys, who visited and described Jaffa in that 
year, says that the town consists only of an old 
castle and three caves cut into the rock.’ At last, 
in 1654, the Franciscans appear to have obtained 
permission to build a pilgrims’ hostel; for in that 
year they founded the present Latin Hospice. 

The trade of Jaffa was now increasing in volume 
from year to year. Ships were arriving daily from 


* Christian Fiuirers von Haimendorff, Reis-Beschreibung in Egypten, 
Arabien, Paldstinam, Syrien, etc., Niirnberg, 1646, pp. 176-177. 

2 Of te Jerusalemsche Reyse, door den E. P. Bernardinus Surius, 
Antwerp, about 1680, pp. 424-426. (The author was ‘‘ Commissioner of 
the Holy Land, and President of the Holy Sepulchre,’’ in the years 1644- 
1647.) 

Put, 44. 

* Quoted by J. S. Buckingham, Travels in Palestine, Second Edition, 
London, 1822, Vol. I, p. 244. 


JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS 137 


Egypt with cargoes of rice and sugar, in exchange 
for which they would load at Jaffa soap, oil, gum, 
and raisins. Cotton, senna leaves, and Arabic gum 
were the chief objects of export to France and the 
other European countries. During the second half 
of the seventeenth century the French occupied the 
first place in this trade; they had at Jaffa a Vice- 
Consul who was placed under the orders of the 
French Consul at Damascus.’ The English took 
but little interest in it: according to a letter from 
the French Consul at Saida, written in the year 
1688, every summer one English vessel used to call 
at Jaffa to load three or four hundred bags of soap, 
and about two hundred bales of spun cotton.’ 
Soon, the example of the Franciscan brethren 
began to be followed by other religious com- 
munities and by private individuals; the merchants 
of Ramleh, especially, began to move to Jaffa. In 
1675, the Dutch painter De Bruyn (Lebrun) visited 
Jaffa; the drawing which he made of the place (see 
fig. 13) already shows some important buildings, 
including warehouses and a mosque, and a number 
Sof isolated houses on the slopes of the hill. Lebrun, 
in the text which accompanies the drawing, points 
out the presence, on the reefs, of many remains of 
ancient buildings.. Coming from a_ painter 
accustomed to exact observation, this evidence of 
the remains of medizval harbour works is of con- 


1 Eugene Roger (1644), La Terre Sainte, quoted by Dapper, op. cit., 
wea 
Raita Paul Masson, Histoire du Commerce Frangais dans le Levant au 
17eme Siécle, Paris, 1897, p. 392. 

Voyage au Levant, c’est-a-dire Dans les Principaux endroits de 
V’Asie Mineure, Dans les Isles de Chio, de Rhodes, de Chypre, etc. De 
méme que Dans les plus considérables Villes d’Egypte, de Syrie, Et de la 
Terre Sainte. . . Par Corneille Le Brun. Traduit du Flamand, Amster- 
dam, 1714, 2 volumes, Vol. I, p. 144. 


138 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


siderable value. The Latin Hospice is indicated 
by the letter D on the picture; the brethren claimed 
that it was situated on the site of Simon the 
Tanner’s house. 

On several occasions the warehouses were 
pillaged by Bedouin robbers, and in 1689 three 
French corsairs fired two hundred shots into the 
town; but these attacks did not discourage the 
merchants of Ramleh from continuing the gradual 
transfer of their businesses and residence to Jaffa. 
In 1722, again, the town, which had already 
developed to a certain extent, was sacked by Arab 
brigands, but seems to have rapidly recovered from 
this experience. 

In 1726, a German priest described Jaffa as being 
still without walls and “as resembling more a 
village than a town, with poor and bad houses 
wherein dwell some Turks, Greeks, Jews and a few 
Catholic Christians of French nationality. It is 
administered by the pasha of Gaza, who makes 
much money out of the coming and going pilgrims, 
seeing that sometimes from a single person there 
is exacted a caffaro of 24 piastre di Levante, which 
correspond to about 32 Rhenish florins of our 
money.” The picture of Jaffa (fig. 14) which this 
traveller gives in his book,’ gives a very good idea 
of the progress made by the city in the forty years 
which had elapsed since the date of Lebrun’s draw- 
ing. On the summit of the somewhat fantastically- 
drawn hill there is the Turkish fort of which the 
two seaward towers constitute the most conspicuous 


1 Masson, op. cit., p. 392. 

* Guérin, Judée, p. 21. 

* P. Angélicus Maria Myller, Peregrinus in ‘Jerusalem, Fremdling in 
Jerusalem, etc., Prague, 1729, Vol. I, p. 181-182. 

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JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS 139 


feature. The square building, without a roof, 
projecting from the shore out into the waters in the 
centre of the picture, is the Latin Hospice. The 
building marked 3 on the right of the Latin 
Hospice is the Greek Church. The Christian part 
of the population of the town comprised, now, a 
number of persons belonging to the Greek Church.’ 
The town was still surrounded by stagnant waters, 
in consequence of which the climate was unhealthy, 
and few persons were tempted to choose Jaffa for 
their place of habitation.’ 

In 1733, we have evidence of the revival of 
industry, several persons being then stated as 
engaged in the manufacture of soap. The chief 
market for this product was Egypt; but consider- 
able quantities were also exported to Europe via 
Acco. This trade was so important, that the shore 
in front of the town was permanently occupied by 
a large number of packages of soap. Large 
quantities of spun cotton were also being shipped 
every year from Jaffa to Acco in small boats, for 
transhipment into the larger vessels destined for 
Europe. Irrigated vegetable gardens, interspersed 
with fig trees, had been in existence for a number 
of years. One traveller, who visited Jaffa in 1738, 
states that he had been to the gardens of the Latin 


1 Palestina Ovvero Primo Viaggio di F. Leandro di Santa Cecilia 
Carmelitano Scalzo, Rome, 1753, p. 81. (He visited Jaffa in 1730.) 

? Leandro di Santa Cecilia, op. cit., p. 81. 

’ Wilhelm Albert Bachiene, Historische und Geographische Beschrei- 
bung von Paldstina nach seinem ehemaligen und jetzigen Zustande. Aus 
dem Holldndischen tibersetzt . . . von Gottfried Maas, Cleve and Leipzig, 
1773, Vol. II, part tii, p. 160. 

* Jonas Korten, Reise nach dem weiland Gelobten nun aber seit 
siebzehn hundert Jahren unter dem Fluche liegenden Lande, Halle, 1743, 
p. 288. 

5 Richard Pococke, Description of the East and some other Countries, 
London, 1743, Vol II, Part I, p. 3. 


140 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


a9 


Hospice and rested there under the “ very good 
shade” of the fig trees.” Like the painter Le Brun 
sixty years previously, he notices the existence, on 
the reefs in front of the town, of ancient ruined 
walls." 

About the year 1740, an Armenian from 
Constantinople obtained a permit to improve the 
existing buildings. He built along the shore, in 
front of the town, the stone wharf which formed the 
beginning of the present “ Harbour street,” and 
erected along it some of the stone houses and ware- 
houses which still line this street on its eastern side.’ 
Greek and Armenian hospices for the reception of 
pilgrims were also built on this wharf. The other 
houses in the town remained the same poor huts as 
they had been before. In the meanwhile, the 
passenger movement through Jaffa had reached a 
remarkable volume; the Swedish naturalist, 
Hasselquist, who visited the town in 1751, states 
that at that date about 4,000 Christians, and as 
many Jewish pilgrims, arrived there yearly from all 
quarters of the world. He confirms the existence, 
near the town, of some pleasant gardens, of which 
he specially extols the beauty of the fig 
and pomegranate trees; he also mentions the 
orange tree, but does not speak of its cultivation on 
any large scale.” 

The fifteen years that followed saw a very 
intensive development of the town. In 1766, 
Niebuhr’ counted between 400 and 500 houses and 

1 Jonas Korten, op. cit., p. 293. 

2 Jonas Korten, op. cit., p. 288. 

* Frederick Hasselquist, Voyage and Travels in the Levant in the 
Years 1749, 1750, 51, 52, London, 1756, p. 118. 

* Hasselquist, op. cit., pp. 276- ook. 


5 Carsten Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung, III, p. 42 (quoted by Ritter, 
op. cit., p. 576). 


JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS 141 


several mosques, and the gardens covered already a 
considerable area; they occupied the site of the one- 
time marshes, which had been drained. The trade 
had become quite important, and several European 
countries had their consuls, or “ residents ” at Jaffa. 
Shortly afterwards this growth was once more 
interrupted, and enormous damage done to the city, 
by a new series of sieges following one another in 
quick succession. 

In 1765, one Osman Pasha had been appointed 
governor of Damascus and Palestine. He spent 
large sums in wars with Zaher ibn-Omar, the 
governor of Acco; and, to find this money, he levied 
contributions on the towns, villages and individuals. 
Whosoever was suspected of having money, was 
summoned, bastinadoed, and plundered. These 
oppressions had already led to revolts at Ramleh 
(1765) and Gaza (1767) when, in 1769, he began 
similar extortions at Jaffa, where among other acts 
of barbarism, he arrested the resident of Venice, 
John Damiani, a respectable old man, put him to 
torture by inflicting five hundred strokes on the 
soles of his feet, and released him only against 
payment of a sum of 42,500. In their exasperation 
at these outrages, many of the people were ready 
to welcome any foreign invader who would free 
them of the pasha’s oppressive rule.’ 

The Mameluke general Ali Bey, who had made 
himself master of Egypt in 1766, took advantage 
of this situation to conclude an alliance with Zaher 
ibn-Omar and to invade Palestine. Turkey was 
involved in a war with Russia and had no troops 
to spare for the southern frontiers of her empire in 


"CC. F. Volney, Travels through Syria and Egypt in the years 1783, 
1784, and 1785, 2 volumes, London, 1787, Vol. II, pp. 109-110. 


142 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


Asia. In 1770, Ali Bey sent a corps of 500 Mame- 
luke cavalry across the frontier; these seized Gaza, 
Ramleh and Ludd. Their appearance divided the 
population of Jaffa into two factions, one of which 
made preparations to deliver the town to the 
Egyptians and appealed for help to Zaher, whilst 
the other sent for Osman Pasha. The latter at 
once left Damascus and, within a few days, 
encamped near Jaffa. Two days later, the news 
was spread of the impending arrival of Zaher; the 
pro-Egyptian party in Jaffa now obtained the upper 
hand, and shut the gates against Osman Pasha, 
whereupon the latter decided to withdraw. But 
during the night, a detachment of his troops, 
passing along the sea-shore, entered by an opening 
in the wall, and sacked the city. The next day, 
Zaher appeared, and, not finding the Turks, took 
possession of Jaffa without meeting any resistance, 
and placed there a garrison.’ 

At the end of February 1771, Ali Bey’s son-in- 
law Mohammed Bey, surnamed Abu-l-Dhahab 
(“father of the gold,” from the luxury of his tent 
and caparisons), arrived in Palestine with an army 
of 40,000 men. At Acco he joined the forces of 
Zaher, and together they marched on Damascus. 
The city was taken in June, and the citadel was 
about to capitulate, when Mohammed Bey, 
apparently won over by the Porte, suddenly 
abandoned the siege and returned in haste to 
Egypt. Here he attacked his father-in-law Ali 
Bey; the latter’s troops having been defeated, 
Mohammed occupied Cairo in April 1772, whilst 
Ali Bey himself with 800 of his Mamelukes escaped 


* Volney, Op. cit., p. 111. 


JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS 143 


to Gaza in an endeavour to take refuge with his ally 
Zaher at Acco. As a result of his defeat, the 
Turkish faction at Jaffa had got the upper hand; 
they had expelled the garrison whom he had left in 
the city and had also taken possession of a small 
Egyptian fleet that was stationed in the port. 
Reinforced by some people of Nablus who had 
joined them, they now opposed the passage of Ali 
Bey northwards. Zaher at once marched upon 
Nablus, inflicting severe punishment on _ its 
inhabitants, then joined Ali Bey south of Jaffa, and 
conducted him safely to Acco. Their combined 
troops attacked, in July, near Saida, a large 
Turkish army that had been sent against them, and 
defeated it completely." On his return to Acco, a 
Russian warship arrived there, and, in execution 
of an agreement which Ali Bey had previously con- 
cluded with Russia, landed stores and ammunition 
and a force of 3,000 Albanians.” He now returned 
to Jaffa for the purpose of chastising its inhabitants 
for their treachery. The pro-Turkish faction, 
which was led by a sheikh from Nablus, shut the 
gates, and resolved to stand a siege, although the 
city, at that time, was protected only by an ordinary 
garden-wall. The few pieces of cannon of the 
besiegers had soon made a breach, but their cavalry 
showed no great eagerness to pass it, the besieged 
having protected the inside with stones, stakes, and 
deep holes dug in the soil. After a siege of eight 
months, the city capitulated in February, 1773, and 
Ali Bey placed in it a governor on behalf of Zaher.’ 
A month later, he was wounded and made prisoner, 


* Volney, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 115-116. 
? Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, article ‘‘ Egypt.” 
* Volney, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 119-120. 


144 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


south of Gaza, in a battle against Abul-l-Dhahab, 
and was poisoned at the latter’s instigation.’ 

Some time afterwards, Abul-l-Dhahab received 
permission from the Porte to invade Palestine in 
order to punish Ali Bey’s supporter Zaher. 
Having collected a large army, he provided himself 
with artillery, amongst which was a gun of: sixteen 
feet in length, and procured foreign gunners whom 
he placed under the command of an Englishman, 
named Robinson. In February, 1775, he crossed 
the frontier, occupied Gaza, and marched on Jaffa, 
whose population determined to resist him. 

The town was then surrounded “by a wall 
without a rampart, of twelve to fourteen feet high, 
and two or three in thickness. The battlements at 
the top were the only tokens by which it was dis- 
tinguishable from a common garden-wall. This 
wall, which has no ditch, is environed by gardens, 
where lemons, oranges, and citrons, in this light 
soil, grow to a most prodigious size. Such was the 
city Mohammed undertook to besiege. It was 
defended by five or six hundred Safadians,’ and as 
many inhabitants, who, at the sight of the enemy, 
armed themselves with their sabres and muskets; 
they had likewise a few brass cannon, twenty-four 
pounders, without carriages; these they mounted, 
as well as they could, on timbers prepared in a 
hurry; and, supplying the place of experience and 
address by hatred and courage, replied to the 
summons of the enemy by menaces and musket- 
shot. 

‘“ Mohammed, finding he must have recourse to 
force, formed his camp before the town; but was 


1 Volney, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 136-137. 
2 Inhabitants of Safed, Zaher’s home. 


JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS 145 


so little acquainted with the business in which he 
was engaged that he advanced within half cannon- 
shot. The bullets, which showered upon the tents, 
apprized him of his error; he retreated, and, by 
making a fresh experiment, was convinced he was 
still too near; at length he discovered the proper 
distance, and set up “his tent, in which the most 
extravagant luxury was displayed : around it, 
without any order, were pitched those of the Mam- 
louks, while the Barbary Arabs formed huts with 
the trunks and branches of the orange and lemon 
trees, and the followers of the army arranged them- 
selves as they could: a few guards were distributed 
here and there, and, without making a single 
entrenchment, they called themselves encamped. 

‘“ Batteries were now to be erected; and a spot 
of rising ground was made choice of, to the south- 
eastward of the town, where, behind some garden- 
walls, eight pieces of cannon were pointed, at two 
hundred paces from the town, and the firing began, 
notwithstanding the musketry of the enemy, who, 
from the top of the terraces, killed several of the 
gunners. 

“Tt is evident that a wall, only three feet thick, 
and without a rampart, must soon have a large 
breach made in it; and the question was, not how 
to mount, but how to get through it. The Mamlouks 
were for doing it on horseback; but they were made 
to comprehend that this was impossible; and they 
consented, for the first time, to march on foot. It 
must have been a curious sight to see them, with 
their huge breeches of thick Venetian cloth, 
embarrassed with their tucked-up Jdeniches, their 
crooked sabres in hand, and pistols hanging to their 
sides, advancing, and tumbling among the ruins of 


146 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


the wall. They imagined they had conquered 
every difficulty when they had surmounted this 
obstacle; but the besieged, who formed a better 
judgment, waited till they arrived at the empty 
space between the city and the wall; there they 
assailed them from the terraces and the windows of 
the houses with such a shower of bullets, that the 
Mamlouks did not so much as think of setting them 
on fire, but retired, under a persuasion that the 
breach was utterly impracticable, since it was 
impossible to enter it on horseback. Morad Bey’ 
brought them several times back to the charge, but 
in vain. 

“Six weeks passed in this manner, and 
Mohammed was distracted with rage, anxiety, and 
despair. The besieged, however, whose numbers 
were diminished by the repeated attacks, and who 
did not see that any succours were to be expected 
from Acre, became weary of defending alone the 
cause of Daher (Zaher). The Mussulmen, 
especially, complained that the Christians, regard- 
ing nothing but their prayers, were more in their 
churches than on the field of battle. Some persons 
began to treat with the enemy, and it was proposed 
to abandon the place, on the Egyptians giving 
hostages. Conditions were agreed on, and the 
treaty might be considered as concluded, when, in 
the midst of the security occasioned by that belief, 
some Mamelouks entered the city; numbers 
followed them, and attempted to plunder; the 
inhabitants defended themselves, and the attack 
recommenced : the whole army then rushed into the 
town, which suffered all the horrors of war: women 
and children, young and old, all were cut to pieces; 


* One of the Mameluke generals. 


JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS 147 


and Mohammed, equally mean and_ barbarous, 
caused a pyramid, formed of the heads of these 
unfortunate sufferers, to be raised as a monument 
of his victory. It is said the number of these 
exceeded twelve hundred. This catastrophe . . . 
bappenued. they iothvobuMiaynt77Ow wn aa Bits 
pyramid of skulls was erected on the hill on which 
the Egyptian artillery had stood. To this day that 
hill is called the ¢el er-rés (“hill of the skulls ”’); 
it is situated in the midst of orange groves,’ a short 
distance to the south-east of the present Town Hall 
and Governorate. 

After the capture of Jaffa, Abu-l-Dhahab 
marched to Acco, which surrendered and was 
plundered. But he died suddenly a few days later, 
and his army made a hasty retreat to Egypt. 

Volney visited Jaffa in 1783, and found that it 
had practically recovered from the effects of Abu-l- 
Dhahab’s siege. But its neighbourhood was still 
continuing to suffer from the depredations of the 
Bedouins, to such an extent that it was unsafe to 
travel on the roads. The district of Jaffa was then 
one of the three districts governed by the pasha of 
Gaza. It belonged to the Sultana Walida (Sultana- 
Mother), who had farmed it out to an Aga against 
payment of a yearly sum of 120 “ purses.” For 
this he received the whole mri and poll tax of the 
town and of some neighbouring villages; but the 
chief part of his revenue was derived from the 





* Volney, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 146-150. 

2 The present owner of the property, Mr. Frederick Murad, told the 
author that when the upper two metres of soil of the hill were levelled, 
about seventy years ago, on the occasion of the creation of the orange 
grove at present in existence, several hundred skulls and many skeletons 
were brought to light, together with a few old pieces of cannon, of which 
one is still to be seen. A fragment of another one, which is now lost, is 
stated to have borne the inscription WCo. 


148 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


custom-house, as he received all the import and 
export duties. These were quite considerable, for 
the goods movement at Jaffa had become very 
important. Among the imports the largest place 
was still occupied by rice brought from Damietta; 
the exports comprised all the spun cottons of 
Palestine and most of the other goods exported 
from the country.’ 

Zaher’s place as governor of Acco had been taken 
by one Ahmed, an Albanian, surnamed EJ-/azzar 
(“the butcher ’’), on account of his cruelty. In 
1791 he had expelled from Acco the French, who 
had since several centuries had important business 
establishments there, and he had confiscated their 
goods and money. Accordingly, when in 1799, 
Bonaparte undertook his expedition from Egypt 
into Palestine with the intention of destroying there 
the Turkish army before the Turkish fleet could 
reach Egypt, which he proposed to destroy next, his 
first objective was the capture of Acco and the 
punishment of El-Jazzar. Crossing the desert in 
February, 1799, he took Gaza and Ramleh, the 
garrisons of both these towns retiring to Jaffa, where 
the Turkish forces were thus brought up to the 
strength of about 4,000 men. On the morning of 
March 3rd, the French army encamped in the 
orange gardens; Lannes’ division was posted to the 
east of the town, and that of Bon to the south, 
whilst Kléber’s took up its position on the 
river Aujah, five miles to the north, so as to 
cut off communication with Acco. On the morning 
of March 5th, the garrison made a sortie and 
surprised one of the French batteries, killing the 
gunners and carrying their heads away into the city. 


* Volney, op. cit., pp. 329-330. 


JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS 149 


The Turkish governor, by paying a high price for 
these trophies, stimulated afresh the ardour of his 
soldiers, who made a second sortie at about I p.m., 
attacked the French batteries both in front and in 
flank through the gardens, and inflicted consider- 
able losses on them, after which they withdrew oan 
into the cit 

At dawn on March 6th, the French having com- 
pleted their preparations, a summons was sent to the 
town to surrender; but the garrison made no reply, 
and increased the intensity of its firing. At 9 a.m. 
all the French batteries began to pound the walls 
on several points at the same time. At I p.m., a 
large breach was effected, and the French poured 
into the city. The men of the garrison withdrew 
into the houses, through the windows of which 
they kept up for another hour an active fusillade 
against the French soldiers. The latter dispersed 
all over the town and gave themselves up to 
one of the most terrible massacres to which a 
captured city has ever fallen victim. The pillage 
and the slaughter lasted full thirty hours. Napoleon 
himself speaks of it, in his Memories, in the 
following terms :— 

“ The fury of the soldier was at its height, every- 
thing was put to the sword; the town thus being 
pillaged suffered all the horrors of a place taken 
by assault. . . It was not until daylight that 
order was completely restored.”* Malus, a 
physician of the French army, and an eye-witness, 
says in his diary: “ _ the soldiers butchered 
men, women, old folk, children, Christians, Turks ; 


1 L‘'Agenda de Malus. Souvenirs de l’Expédition d’Egypte 1798- 
1801. Publié et annoté par le Général Thoumas, Paris, 1892, pp. 132-133. 
2 Id., p. 135 (footnote). 


L 


150 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


all that had a human face became the victim of their 
fury.. The tumult of the carnage, the broken doors, 
the houses shaken by the noise of the firing and the 
arms, the screaming of the women, the father and 
the child thrown down one over the other, the 
daughter raped on the dead body of her mother, 
the smoke of the dead singed by their clothes, the 
smell of the blood, the moaning of the wounded, 
the shouts of the victors quarrelling over the spoils 
of an expiring victim, the infuriated soldiers reply- 
ing to the cries of despair by shouts of rage and 
by redoubled blows, lastly men satiated with blood 
and gold falling, exhausted, over heaps of dead 
bodies : such was the sight which this unfortunate 
city offered until the night had come.” 

Bonaparte sent his aides-de-camp, Beauharnais 
and Croisier, to calm the fury of the soldiers. The 
two officers, instead of confining themselves to the 
strict carrying out of their mission, accepted the 
offers of peace of the garrison who, entrenched in 
some large buildings, declared that, if they were 
promised that their lives would be spared, they 
would be ready to surrender, but that otherwise they 
would defend themselves to the last. When these 
4,000 prisoners were brought into the camp, Bona- 
parte was greatly embarrassed; he could not send 
them to Egypt for lack of troops to spare as an 
escort, neither could he afford to liberate them and 
run the risk of seeing them go to Acco and join 
again the forces of the enemy. After three days of 
fruitless deliberations, he gave orders to shoot the 
prisoners; this order was carried out on March toth, 
on the beach in front of the town.’ 

1 T.’Agenda de Malus, pp. 135-136. 


2 Mémoires de M. de Bourienne, Vol. II, p. 226 (quoted by Munk, 
La Palestine, p. 649). 


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JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS IST 


For some time previous to the arrival of the 
French, southern Palestine had been suffering from 
an epidemic of plague, but as long as the army was 
on the march it had remained almost untouched by 
the disease. But the crowding of 4,000 Turkish 
and 12,000 French soldiers into Jaffa, and 
especially the looting of the houses and the 
dispersion of their contents amongst the soldiers 
led to the broadcasting of the germs. On the very 
morrow after the occupation, the plague began to 
spread with lightning speed and with deadly effect 
throughout the city : about thirty soldiers died every 
day, apart from a large number of civilians. The 
moral of the troops was gravely shaken by the 
progress of the malady, and Bonaparte, in order 
to revive their courage, did not hesitate to visit, and 
it is said even to touch, the sick at the Armenian 
convent which had been converted into a military 
hospital (see fig. 15). 

The departure of the army on March 24th, on its 
way to Acco, arrested in some measure the progress 
of the disease at Jaffa itself. But whilst the siege 
of Acco was prolonging itself, streams of plague- 
stricken men kept pouring back into Jaffa, and once 
more the epidemic spread with great virulence; so 
that after a few weeks there was hardly a house left 
which had not been infected. The Latin convent, 
which had placed itself in quarantine, did not 
succeed in escaping the contagion, and most of the 
priests in it died.’ 

After the departure of the army, the breaches 
of the city-wall were repaired, and preparations 
were made for the landing, storing, and transport 
of the supplies which were to be sent from Egypt 


+ L’Agenda de Malus, pp. 139-140. 


152 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


by sea. Early in April, three frigates, which had 
succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the English 
cruisers, arrived at Jaffa and landed provisions and 
siege artillery. But on May 24th the army came 
back to Jaffa, all hope of taking Acco having been 
abandoned, the Turkish army having, however, 
been destroyed. A halt of three days was made to 
rest the troops. The main army left on the 27th, 
and the rearguard under Kléber one day later, after 
they had blown up the fortifications. 

The wounded were placed on board ship for 
Egypt; but these vessels were captured by the 
squadron of Sir Sidney Smith, the English 
defender of Acco. Some authorities maintain, and 
others deny, that, before leaving Jaffa, Bonaparte, 
in order to prevent the French wounded or plague- 
stricken soldiers, whom he was forced to leave 
behind him, from falling into the hands of the 
Turks, caused them to be poisoned. The truth 
seems to be that he actually gave such orders, but 
that they were not carried out. There were alto- 
gether some fifty men whom it was impossible to 
carry away, and who had to be abandoned to their 
fate. “ Bonaparte said to the physician Desgenettes 
that it would be more humane to give them opium 
than to leave them behind alive; to which that 
physician made this much-vaunted answer: ‘ My 
business is to heal them, not to kill them.’ Opium 
was not given to them.” Sir Sidney Smith, who 
arrived at Jaffa immediately after the departure of 
the French, does not mention anything about this 
matter in his despatches, but says that “ seven poor 


1 Thiers, Histoire de la Révolution Frangaise, Directoire, ch. xviié 
(quoted by Munk, La Palestine, p. 650). 


JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS 153 


wretches were left alive in the hospital, where they 
are protected and shall be taken care of.’” 

Napoleon’s enemies accuse him of having com- 
pletely destroyed the orange and lemon groves of 
Jaffa. That some damage was done is evident, 
considering that the French, during the siege, 
“established their communications across the 
gardens, and that the forests of orange trees 
covered their movements and were their only 
ramparts against the fire of the enemy.” It is 
also true that during the march from Jaffa to the 
Egyptian frontier all the villages along the road 
were burned and the harvest on the fields destroyed, 
but as far as the orange groves are concerned, the 
present writer has been unable to discover reliable 
evidence confirming their destruction. 

After the departure of the French, the recon- 
struction of the fortifications of Jaffa was begun 
under the supervision of Turkish and English 
officers, but early in the year 1800, before the work 
could be completed, the town had to stand another 
siege. 

Towards the close of 1799, there had started, 
between El-Jazzar and the Grand-Wezir newly 
arrived from Constantinople, quarrels of such 
violence that their troops began fighting one 
another, with the result that the Turkish expedition 
against the French in Egypt was delayed. But 
when the Turkish army had at last gone, El-Jazzar 
came down on Jaffa where a Turkish garrison had 
been left, and besieged it. Abu-Marra, the Grand- 
Wezir’s favourite, who was in charge of the defence, 
resisted for nine months, and then made his escape 


™ Quoted by Sir C. M. Watson, Bonaparte’s Expedition to Palestine 


in 1799; P.E.F.Q.S., 1917; p. 31: 
2 L’Agenda de Malus, p. 131. 
§ P 


154 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


by sea. Some time after El-Jazzar’s death in 1804, 
Abu Marra was appointed pasha of Djedda, on the 
Red Sea. He took his route from Turkey through 
Palestine; but having arrived at Jaffa, he stopped 
there and refused to proceed to his post. The 
governor of Palestine, Suleiman Pasha, received 
orders to attack him, and Jaffa was again besieged. 
After a short period of resistance, Abu-Marra once 
more took safety in flight, and found refuge with 
the pasha of Damascus.” 

The period from 1810 to 1820 saw important 
works of reconstruction and embellishment at Jaffa, 
thanks to the energy and taste of the then governor, 
who is known to us by his surname only: Abu- 
Nabbit. He rebuilt the walls entirely, and made 
a new ditch round them. By 1815 he had completed 
the building of a large mosque, which is still the 
principal mosque of Jaffa, and a fine bazaar.’ In 
the centre of the latter he erected, over one of the 
two perennial springs already mentioned, a fine 
fountain (see fig. 16) faced with marble slabs 
decorated with painted designs and Arabic 
sentences in letters of gold. A traveller of the 
middle of last century describes this fountain as 
recalling, by the elegance of its architecture and the 
beauty of its ornamentation, the Moorish fountains 
of southern Spain, wrought and chiselled like 
jewels of ivory... A part of the marble basin of the 


* Munk, La Palestine, p. 650. 
2? Chateaubriand, Itinéraire de Paris a Jérusalem, Nouvelle édition 
“* Classiques Garnier,’ RU tis) Dee. 

> Otto Friedrich von Richter, Wallfahrten im Morgenlande, Berlin, 
1822, 21 

‘ tanias Silk Buckingham, Travels in Palestine, Second Edition, 
London, 1822, p. 228. 

> Louis Enault, La Terre Sainte. Voyage des Quarante Pélerins 
de 1853, Paris, 1854, p 





A 
Fig. 16 THE BAZAAR AND FOUNTAIN OF ABU-NABBUT IN 1834 





A 
Fig, 17 JAFFA: THE SEBIL ABU-NABBUT IN 1914. 


[face p. 154} 





JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS 155 


fountain still survives, but the columns and the roof 
have disappeared. 

On the road to Jerusalem, at a distance of about 
half a mile from the eastern gate, Abu-Nabbit 
built another monumental fountain (fig. 17) covered 
with three large, and four small, domes in green; 
it was adorned with sculptured and painted 
flowers, and inscribed with verses engraved in 
golden letters on a background of white marble.’ 
This fountain is still called the Se67/ Abu-Nabbit. 

By the year 1816, the eastern gate of the city had 
been rebuilt in monumental style, crowned with 
three small cupolas. The town counted then about 
a thousand houses. The defences comprised three 
small forts: one near the sea on the south-west, 
another also near the sea on the north, and a third 
near the eastern gate’; this last occupied the place 
covered to-day by the prison and the offices of the 
Commandant of Police. 

In 1817, the walls were still in a very ruinous 
state, but Abu-Nabbit was busily engaged in 
repairing them. Vessels were arriving daily from 
Ceesarea, with stones taken from the ruins of that 
ancient city; and every morning at sunrise, the 
inhabitants of Jaffa, Christians and Moslems in 
turn, were called out to take part in the work of 
rebuilding the fortifications. By 1820, the walls 
had been completely repaired.” 

From the time of the rebuilding of Jaffa in the 
seventeenth, to the beginning of the nineteenth, 

> Richter op: the Dat ass 

2 Buckingham, op. cit., p. 245. 

’ Travels in Egypt and Nubia, Syria and Asia Minor, during 
the years 1817 and 1818, by the Hon. Leonard Irby and James Mangles, 


Commanders in the Royal Navy, London, 1823, p. 146. 
4 William Rae Wilson, Travels in Egypt and the Holy Land, London, 


1824, p. 96. 


156 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


century, there was no Jewish community, and the 
Jewish pilgrims who passed through the town were 
made to suffer all sorts of vexations and humilia- 
tions. Lo put a stop to this situation, Isaiah 
Agiman, the Jewish banker of the Janissaries at 
Constantinople, purchased at Jaffa, in 1820, some 
buildings which he legally transferred to the 
Sephardic community at Jerusalem; and in one of 
the houses he established a free hostel for Jewish 
travellers, and a small synagogue.’. About the year 
1830, a sailing vessel from the north of Africa, 
having on board a large number of Moroccan and 
Algerian Jews, foundered near Haifa; those of the 
passengers who escaped from the wreck made their 
way to Jaffa, where they laid the foundations of the 
present Jewish community.’ 

In 1831, Mohammed Ali, the Turkish governor 
of Egypt, proclaimed himself independent and sent 
an army under the command of his son, [brahim 
Pasha, to take possession of Palestine and Syria, 
which countries had been promised to him by the 
Sultan as a reward for assistance given during the 
war with Greece, a promise which had not been kept. 
Ibrahim’s force comprised 30,000 men with 50 siege 
guns and 17 bomb-throwing mortars, and it 
was supported by a fleet of 7 frigates of 60 guns, 6 
corvettes, 10 brigs, and about a dozen gunboats.’ 
The army left Cairo in October, 1831, crossed the 
frontier on November Ist, and encamped a few days 
later on the hills south of Jaffa, between the town 
and the wely of Sheikh Ibrahim el-Ajami. Simul- 
taneously the fleet, commanded by Ibrahim Pasha 


+ Jewish Encyclopedia, article ‘‘ Jaffa '’ (Vol. VII, p. 52b.). 
et RT é 

' Eugéne Poujade, Le Liban et la Syrie, 1845-1860, 3éme édition, 
Paris, 1867, pp. 15-16. 


JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS 157 


in person, anchored off the city. At the sight of 
the ships, the principal notables of Jaffa assembled 
and decided at once to surrender the town. <A 
deputation was sent to [brahim on board the flag- 
ship, and a few hours later a small garrison landed, 
and took possession of the city.’ 

The army and the fleet together now laid siege 
to Acco; but it took them seven months to reduce 
this city, which did not fall until May, 1832. Jeru- 
salem had already been occupied before this date, 
Damascus fell in June, and in the last days of July 
Ibrahim defeated the main Turkish army that had 
been sent against him, and advanced into Asia 
Minor. In December he defeated the last Turkish 
force that barred the road to Constantinople; but 
the intervention of the European Powers forced 
him to arrest his progress. By the convention 
signed at Kutaiah on 8th April, 1833, he was con- 
firmed in the possession of Palestine, Syria, and 
Adana, and thereupon began his withdrawal within 
these limits. However, foreseeing further struggles 
with Turkey, he began to levy new troops in 
Palestine and Syria. This measure called forth 
the most violent opposition on the part of all classes 
of the population, which was determined to resist 
by all means the enforcement of the orders of 
conscription. Ibrahim Pasha. marched to Nablus 
(1834), which was the centre of the oppositional 
movement, assembled there the principal sheikhs of 
the region, declared to them that he expected them 
to furnish him 2,000 men, and went to Jaffa to await 
their reply. As soon as he had left, the sheikhs 


1 Thomas Skinner, Adventures during a Journey overland to India 
by way of Egypt, Syria and the Holy Land, London, 1836 and 1838, 
German translation by V. Jacobi, Leipzig, 1837, Vol. I, p. 216. 


158 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


decided not to give a single man to the Egyptian 
army, and, uniting themselves with the sheikhs of 
the regions of Jerusalem and Hebron, proclaimed 
a revolt against Egypt. Ibrahim Pasha at once 
left Jaffa at the head of two regiments of infantry 
and one of cavalry, and marched on Jerusalem 
which was only lightly garrisoned and where he 
intended to establish his headquarters. He had 
taken the ordinary road from Jaffa to Jerusalem 
through the Wady Ah, and had arrived near the 
village Abu-Ghésh, when he was attacked by the 
rebels. With great difficulty he succeeded in 
fighting his way through to Jerusalem, only to find 
himself completely blockaded there, with all com- 
munications to Jaffa cut. Three times in succession 
he attempted to break through towards the sea, but 
in every case his troops were forced back into 
Jerusalem. At last, thanks to the intervention of 
the sheikh Husein Abdel-Hadi, governor of Acco, 
who happened to be in Jerusalem, the besiegers 
permitted the Pasha to leave with his army for 
Jaffa, where he arrived a few hours after an 
Egyptian fleet led by his father had anchored in the 
roadstead. A large relief force was landed, but 
Mohammed Ali himself, without even coming 
ashore, returned at once to Egypt.’ Ibrahim Pasha 
had been away from Jaffa for four months, 
throughout which period it had been besieged by 
the rebels of Nablus... Now with his army recon- 
stituted and strengthened, the Pasha marched back 
into the hills and succeeded in putting down the 
rebellion. 

During the Egyptian domination Jaffa, far from 


* Poujade, op. cit., pp. 16-18. 
2 Thomson, The Land and the Book, London, 1893, p. 515. 


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JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS 150 


suffering in any way from the almost constant wars 
and sieges, continued to grow slowly but regularly. 
Ibrahim Pasha even contemplated, at one time, 
transforming the bassat-Yafah (see page 26) into 
an inland harbour connected by a canal with the 
sea; but nothing came of the project. In 1838, 
a violent earthquake threw down many houses and 
a large part of the fortifications.’ 

In 1840, the Lebanon revolted, and in the last 
days of the same year, Turkey, with the aid of 
England, France and Austria, regained Palestine. 
The last Egyptian domination over the country was 
thus ended. 

Of the Egyptians who had come to Jaffa with 
Ibrahim Pasha, a few hundred families had settled, 
close to the town, in small villages known as the 
sakanat : the saknet el-Musryeh, named “ Egyptian 
village’ on Bedford’s chart (see fig. 19) and 
situated along the shore to the west of the old 
Moslem cemetery; the saknet Abu-Kebir at about 
a mile’s distance to the east of the old city; the 
saknet Hamméd a few hundred yards to the north 
of the latter; the saknet ed-Darwish, about a mile 
to the south. On the departure of the Egyptian 
troops, the population of these villages remained 
behind. Their settlements have grown since then; 
to-day, most of them are surrounded by orange 
groves on all sides. 

The Jewish community was still very small. Its 
growth was hindered chiefly by the continuation of 
an old Herem, or interdict, taking the form of a 
prohibition for Jews to settle in Jaffa, pronounced 


* W. F. Lynch, Narrative of the United States Expedition to the 
River Jordan and the Dead Sea, London, 1849, p. 404. 
2 Vigouroux, Dictionnaire de la Bible, 1899, article ** Joppé.”’ 


160 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


several centuries ago by the rabbis of Jerusalem 
with the purpose of attracting all immigrants to the 
Holy City. Notwithstanding this interdict the 
nucleus of a Jewish community had already begun 
to form itself, as we have seen before, around the 
pilgrims’ hostel of Isaiah Agiman. In 1839, a body 
of Ashkenazic Jews’ arrived at Jaffa and established 
themselves there. But, in spite of its increased 
numbers, the community still remained too poor to 
buy a cemetery, and continued, as heretofore, to 
bury its dead at Jerusalem. In 1841, the Chief 
Rabbi of Jerusalem, Abraham Hayyim Gagin, 
appointed a rabbi for Jaffa in the person of Jehudah 
Halevy; the erem ceased to be binding, and Jews 
were henceforth free to settle in Jaffa. Even Jews 
from Jerusalem began now to establish themselves 
at Jaffa for commercial purposes’. Five years 
later, the Jewish community of Jaffa counted 
already about thirty families who had made their 
permanent home there.’ 

During the period from 1840 to 1855, certain 
people from Beyrut created, on the plain on both 
sides of the river Aujah, as well as in many of the 
gardens around Jaffa, large plantations of mulberry 
trees with the object of introducing the breeding of 
the silk worm. These plantations succeeded very 
well, and by the end of the fifties the production of 
raw silk had become quite a profitable branch of 
agriculture. Since then, it has, however, entirely 
disappeared, and of the mulberry plantations only 


1 Jews from Northern Europe, as opposed to those from southern 
European countries, who are called Sephardim. 

2 Jewish Encyclopedia, article ‘‘ Jaffa.’’ 

* Rabbi Joseph Schwarz, Das heilige Land, Frankfurt a/M., 1852, 
pp. r10-111 (written in 1846). 

4 Thomson, The Land and the Book, pp. 515 and 524. 


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MAP OF JAFFA IN 1863 


28 





JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS 161 


small isolated groups of trees are left here and there 
in the orange groves. 

Towards the middle of the last century the town 
was growing at a rapid pace. Sir Moses 
Montefiore, who had visited it in 1855, wrote on 
the occasion of another visit in 1857: “Jaffa appears. 
much larger, and a great number of houses have 
been built since we were last here, only twenty-two 
months ago.” 

In the autumn of 1866, an American religious 
society, which called itself the Church of the 
Messiah, settled at Jaffa. It counted in all 170 
members, and was led by a preacher of the name 
of Adams. They brought with them framed wooden 
houses which they set up on a low hill situated 
on the Nablus road, a few hundred yards to the 
north of the city, and surrounded on all sides by 
orange groves. But disease and poverty soon led 
to such a state of discouragement among them, that 
the society was broken up; before a year had 
passed, most of its members returned to America 
on a vessel which the American Government had 
placed at their disposal for the purpose. Before 
leaving, they sold their property to a German 
group, the Tempelgemeinde (“ Community of the 
Temple’), an Unitarian sect,who installed themselves 
at Jaffain 1868. This group consisted of about 100 
peasants from Wurtemberg, with their families. 
They were sturdy people, accustomed to the tilling 
of the soil; unlike their unfortunate American pre- 
decessors, they were successful in their under- 
takings, and, notwithstanding the losses which they 


+ Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, edited by Dr. Loewe, 
London, 1890, p. 65. 


162 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


suffered in consequence of the recent War, they are 
still a prosperous community. 

The year 1879 marks the beginning of a 
new epoch in the life of Jaffa. That year the 
demolition of the city walls was commenced; and 
the immediate consequence of this measure was the 
creation and rapid expansion of new quarters both 
to the south and to the north of the walled city. In 
1879, there were only a few houses in existence in 
the neighbourhood of the wely of Sheikh Ibrahim 
el-Ajami; to-day, after about forty years’ slow but 
regular growth, the “ Ajami ” quarter of Jaffa, that 
is to say that part of the town which 1s situated on 
the hills to the south of the old city, counts about 
950 houses (fig. 20). 

By 1888, the city walls had been completely 
levelled and their place taken by buildings; the 
ditch had been filled up, and had been replaced by 
the present main road to the Ajami quarter. Along 
the sea, where the city wall had stood at a distance 
of about eight metres from the depth of water to 
which boats could come, so that over the intervening 
space, passengers and goods had to be carried in 
the arms or on the backs of the boatmen and 
porters, the existing narrow road had been widened 
and finished off as a quay wall with, at intervals, 
steps going down to the water level. At the same 
time the sea-bottom was deepened along this quay; 
and, in front of the Armenian convent, a platform 
was built out into the sea, and on it a custom-house 
erected, with a landing-stage of stone at depths 
where lighters and rowing boats can be easily 
berthed alongside. 

The year 1892 saw the opening of the Jaffa- 
Jerusalem Railway, the first railway in Palestine. 


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JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS 163 


This and the active stream of Jewish immigration 
which had set in about ten years previously, had a 
pronounced effect upon the development of the 
trade and shipping of Jaffa, and upon the size of 
its population. 

Between 1886 and 1892, the Jewish quarters of 
Neveh-Zedek and Neveh-Shalom, and the poorer 
Arab quarter of the Menshieh, to the north-east and 
north of the old .town, had been founded and 
completed; the planning of the streets and the style 
of the houses were still in accordance with the ideas 
prevalent at the time in the towns of Palestine. 
But in 1909 the new Jewish suburb of Tel Aviv 
was founded on quite modern lines, and has since 
developed into an important township comprising 
nearly one-third of the total population of Jaffa and 
covering an area about as large as that of the Arab 
part of the town (see Appendix IT). 

There is no doubt that the remarkable growth of 
the town of Jaffa and of its trade during the last 
forty years is due first and foremost to the creation 
of the Jewish agricultural settlements in the neigh- 
bourhood, and to the influx into the town itself 
(including Tel Aviv) of a large population of 
ZionistJews. Both this immigration and the whole 
foreign trade of Jaffa were brought to a sudden stop 
by the World War of 1914-1918. 

At the beginning of November, 1914, Turkey 
entered the war on the side of the Central Powers, 
and shortly afterwards all the inhabitants of 
Palestine who were subjects of the Entente 
countries were expelled by being forcibly put on 
board the first available steamers from Jaffa and 
Haifa. 

In August, 1914, a new governor of Jaffa had 


164 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


been appointed in the person of Hassan Bek Basri 
el-Jabi. Immediately on his arrival he formed of a 
number of inhabitants a local militia. Like Abu- 
Nabbtt, a century earlier, he did much for the 
improvement and embellishment of the town. In 
July, 1915, he began to open, across the orange 
groves to the east of the town, the fine “ Boulevard 
Jemal Pasha,” which has since been renamed 
“ King George Avenue.” ‘The chief beauty of this 
avenue is the long row of Washingtonia palms 
which runs along its centre; these palms were bred 
at the Jewish agricultural school of Mikveh-Israel, 
situated close to the Sakxet Abu-Kebir, and they 
were planted in the new boulevard by the pupils of 
that institution. In the heart of the town itself, 
Hassan Bek also made considerable changes, 
pulling down houses in order to open new roads and 
squares, or to widen existing ones. Thus, in order 
to improve the approach to the harbour by widening 
the street leading down to it from the public square 
where the Jerusalem, Gaza and Nablus roads 
converge, he demolished the picturesque old bazaar 
built by Abu-Nabbit. He also built in the 
Menshieh quarter, not far from the shore, a new 
mosque, which does not lack due proportion and a 
certain grace, and which 1s called, after its builder, 
the Hassan Bek mosque. 

In November, 1915, and again in June, 1916, a 
German foundry and mechanical workshop at Jaffa, 
which had been converted into a factory of war 
material, was shelled and destroyed by British and 
French warships, but no damage was done to the 
town in general or even to the buildings situated in 
the neighbourhood of the factory. 

In May, 1916, Hassan Bek was replaced as 


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JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS 165 


governor by Shukri Bek. In October of the same 
year, forty-five notables, the heads of the best 
families, including the Mayor of Jaffa himself, were 
deported together with their wives and children, 
first to Jerusalem, then to Damascus, and to 
Aleppo. There they were separated into several 
groups which were taken to Konia, Afium Kara 
Hissar, Eski-Shehir, Angora, and Broussa in 
Anatolia. It appears that the German consul at 
Jaffa had denounced them as_ entertaining 
sympathies for the Entente Powers. 

In March, 1917, after the first attempt of the 
British armies to break through the Turkish front 
at Gaza, Shukri Bek left Jaffa, and was replaced 
by Hadi Bek. Shortly afterwards almost the whole 
population of Jaffa was evacuated. The orders 
were that only the owners of orange groves in 
person were to be permitted to stay behind in order 
to look after their properties; in fact, however, many 
of them were allowed to keep their families with 
them. The official instructions were also to the 
effect that all the inhabitants were to be sent to 
Homs and Hamah in northern Syria, and that free 
railway passes were to be issued to them for these 
destinations. Nevertheless, most of the people 
had to make the journey at their own expense. 
Many families, having no money for the journey, 
saw themselves compelled to take their furniture 
down into the streets and to sell it there at very low 
prices; it was bought up mostly by the people of 
Nablus, and in many cases not even one-tenth of its 
value was obtained. The reason given for the 
order of evacuation was that the Turkish General 
Headquarters expected the British at any moment 


to make a descent upon Jaffa. The Government 
M 


166 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


archives were transported to Ramleh and to 
Jerusalem, and Jaffa remained practically empty, a 
dead city. 

On the 15th November, 1917, the Turkish 
commandant at Jaffa received a message from 
Headquarters, stating that the British would 
probably arrive at Jaffa in a day or two, and that all 
the inhabitants who had remained in the town or 
in the groves were to be immediately sent away; 
also that the police barracks and the Town Hall 
were to be burned. ‘These orders were only carried 
outin part. Fire was set to the police barracks, but 
not to the Town Hall; nor were the remaining 
inhabitants sent away. The commandant, however, 
collected his soldiers (the whole Turkish garrison 
of Jaffa was then composed only of one officer and five 
mounted soldiers), the police and the militia, and 
took the road towards Nablus. But when they had 
arrived at about 3 miles from the town, they were 
discovered by a British areoplane which dropped a 
few bombs in their neighbourhood. Whereupon 
they all, with the exception of the commandant who 
continued his way to Nablus, fled back to Jaffa. 

On the following day, the 16th of November, the 
first mounted British troops, belonging to the 
“Anzacs” (Australian and New Zealand Army 
Corps) took possession of the city without meeting 
with any opposition; and, within a few days, the 
exiled inhabitants began to return to their homes. 

Since the termination of the Great War, the 
economic life of the city has slowly come back to its 
previous aspect (see Appendix IV: Statistics). 
Jaffa proper has grown very little, but Tel Aviv has 
experienced a development such as few other cities 
have known these last years, even in the rich 


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JAFFA UNDER THE TURKS 167 


countries of the West. The railway line to Ramleh, 
which the Turks had torn up, has been relaid; the 
road to Jerusalem has been repaired; large loans 
have been granted by the Government to orange 
growers for the improvement of their groves which 
had suffered from locusts and other adverse con- 
ditions during the War. Projects are under 
discussion for the creation of a modern harbour, and 
electric tramways; and as these concluding lines are 
being written, workmen are busy connecting the 
streets and houses and factories of Tel Aviv and 
Jaffa with the first power-station set up under 
a comprehensive scheme designed by Jewish 
engineers for the provision of electric light and 
energy for the whole of Palestine. The energy, 
the spirit of enterprise, and the modern methods 
brought with them by the Jews returning to the land 
of their fathers are making the pulses of the 
“beauty of the seas ” throb with the expectation of 
a new life full of promise. 


APPENDIX I 


THE JUDEO-GREEK NECROPOLIS OF JAFFA* 


About a mile to the east of the centre of the old 
city of Jaffa there rises a low hill, crowned to-day 
by the Russian church to which reference has been 
made before, and covered by the houses of an 
Egyptian village called the Saknet Abu-Kebir, 
founded during the first half of the last century. 
The hill and the orange groves situated next to it, 
over a distance of about 700 yards southwards, and 
about as much south-westwards until close to the 
fountain known as the Sebil Abu-Nabbit, represent 
the site of the ancient cemetery of Jaffa, such as it 
was in use at the beginning of the Christian era. 
The land, especially the hill, is literally honey- 
combed with rock-tombs. ‘The inhabitants of the. 
neighbourhood are exploiting the tombs as quarries ; 
in fact, practically the whole village of Abu-Kebir 
and many houses in Jaffa itself are built of stone 
of this origin, and until the present day, tombs are 


* Literature : 

* Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statements, 1874, 1893, 
1894, 1898 and 1903. 

7 Ch. Clermont-Ganneau, Archeological Researches in Palestine 
during the years 1873-1874, London, 1896, Volume II. 

°C. R. Conder, Syrian Stone- Lore, London, 1896. 

* Samuel Klein, Juedisch-palaestinisches Corpus Inscriptionum, 
Vienna, 1920. 

° René Dussaud, Musée du Louvre, Les Monuments Palestiniens et 
Judaiques, Paris, 1912. 

168 


THE JUDEO-GREEK NECROPOLIS OF JAFFA 169 


being destroyed year after year for the same 
purpose. 

The tombs are constituted of sepulchral chambers 
rudely hollowed out of the soft calcareous sand- 
stone that underlies the cultivated soil everywhere 
in the maritime plain. Small marble slabs, with 
inscriptions (¢ztw/z) are generally set with mortar on 
one of the walls near the entrance; and occasionally 
there are still found in the caves, glass phials, and 
lamps, and vases of terra-cotta, which were placed 
there when the tombs were still in use. 

Of the inscriptions found so far, practically all 
are Jewish. Some are in Hebrew-Aramaic, but 
most are in Greek. Occasionally, at the end, the 
Hebrew word o15w (skalom=peace) is added, or 
the Hebrew name of the dead when the inscription 
is in Greek. These dituli show that the language 
of the Jews of Jaffa of the first few centuries A.D. 
was Greek; Hebrew and Aramaic were apparently 
spoken only by the rabbis and other men of 
learning. Some of the inscriptions belong to the 
tombs of rabbis of the period of the Amoraim and 
Tannaim,; such tombs are generally indicated by 
the adjunction, to the name of the dead person, 
of the title of honour Barabbi or Birebbi (1292 
or 7273, or in the Greek form Bepe®: or Bappafi). 
Figure 24 reproduces the inscription belonging to 
the tomb of Rabbi Judah ben Jonathan ha-Kohen, 
who is mentioned in the Mishnah (Eduyot VIII, 2) 
as having appeared as a witness before the-Court 
of Yabne at some date towards the middle of the 
second century A.D. 


170 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


pablo A 
> \a Ir Deyae 
Sh WA) ri 


FIGURE 24" 


The transcription into modern characters, and the 
translation, run as follows :— 


Pa Bu lovda RABBI JUDAH. 
pee by else get | Tes ih alae Yok? 
| Rabbi 


ht Pare fon Vals Judan the Priest, 
the Barabbi. 
Diow wh3 ny 


VLOS lmva 
Va 


* P.E.F.Q.S., 1900, p. 114. 
2 Cp. WHI"), Exodus xxxi, 17. 


Rest. Repose.” 
Peace. 


Son (of) Jona= 
tha(n). 


THE JUDEO-GREEK NECROPOLIS OF JAFFA 171 


Among the names of laymen occurs the note- 
worthy one of “ Isaac, President of the community 
of the Cappadocians, from Tarsus, a linen 
merchant,” showing the presence at Jaffa of a whole 
community of Cappadocian Jews; others came from 
Egypt, Cyrenaica, Chios, and Babylon, and other 
foreign countries. Another interesting description 
is that of “ Benjamin, the grandchild of Tanhum 
son of Simon, Centurion of the camp,” which 
reminds one of the fortified camp which Vespasian 
had constructed on the top of the hill of Jaffa. 


The following are some of the names 
recovered :— 


Men, Hesrew.—Judah, Jonathan, Tanhum, 
Nahum, Samuel, Tarphon, Elazar, Joshua, 
Hiya, Aha, Manasseh, Semachyahu, Isa, 
Lazar, ) Daniel) Micah, § Zachariah, © Levi; 
Simon, Jacob, Joseph, Isaac, Benjamin, 
Reuben, Elkana, Yannai. 
Men, ArAmatc.—Abudemnos, Abbomari (Abbo- 
mares), Abbones, Abbi. 
Men, GrEEK.—Zenon, Esses, Zoilos, Paregorios, 
Gregorias, Ariston, Kyrillos and Alexander 
(both from Alexandria), Marias Anatolios, 
Appion, Mannos, Eilasios. 
Men, Graco-Roman.—Titios, Rufinos, Gallos, 
Julianos, Justos. 
Women, Hesrew.—Shalom, Rebecca, Anna. 
WomMeEN, GREEK.—Nonna, Isidote, Protarchis. 
There is also the ¢tulus of a woman, in which, 
of her five children three sons are mentioned. Of 
these one bears a Hebrew name (Samuel), one an 
Aramaic (Abudemnos), and one a Greek (Zenon). 


172 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


Some of the inscriptions bear, apart from the 
text, the representation either of the menorah, the 
seven-branched candlestick symbolic of Judaism 
(fig. 25), or a palm branch. The latter has not 
been found on funerary monuments of other 
Palestinian towns, and seems, therefore, to be 
characteristic of the Jaffa tombs. The same 


T OTTOC 
€1\ A Kw 
kK AITA Aokoc 


FIGURE 257 


remark applies to the formula (skalom=peace), 
which is not found at Jerusalem. 

There is no doubt that only a very small part has 
been brought to light of the inscriptions which once 
formed part of the large necropolis of Jaffa, and 
which constitute a most valuable source of 
information concerning the history of the city 
during several centuries for which no other records 
are so far known. Much, of course, has been 


POPTUB. OCS. # 886% es Beeagu: 


THE JUDEO-GREEK NECROPOLIS OF JAFFA 173 


destroyed by the quarrying operations of the 
villagers in search of stone for building; but it 
appears that much is still there that can be saved, 
if the required steps are taken without loss of time. 


ACRE IND Cs aa 


TEL AVIV 


Until 1909, the Jews of Jaffa lived partly 
dispersed in the non-Jewish parts of the town, 
partly in the narrow Jewish quarters (Neveh-Zedek, 
Neveh-Shalom, etc.), built on the native model 
during the years 1886-1900. In 1909, thanks to a 
building loan granted by the Jewish National 
Fund, a group of sixty families bought a piece of 
land of about 130,000 square metres situated along 
the western side of the Nablus road, at a distance 
of about half a mile from the town. They built 
there sixty-two houses and a large Hebrew College, 
and gave to the settlement the name of Tel Aviv 
(“the hill of spring’’). In the following years new 
land was bought, and further houses were built. 
Soon the new suburb, with its modern appearance, 
its clean and wide streets, its plain but not unattrac- 
tive cottages and small gardens, and its excellent 
water supply, began to act as a powerful centre of 
attraction, and more and more Jews of Jaffa began 
to leave their dwellings in the older quarters and 
to build themselves houses in Tel Aviv. The war 
of 1914-1918 interrupted the growth of this new 
city. 

When peace was re-established, Jewish activities 

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TEL AVIV 175 


were revived with more energy even than before. 
For now the famous “Balfour Declaration” of 
November, 1917, embodying England’s promise to 
help the Jewish people in the rebuilding of its 
National Home in Palestine, stirred new hopes and 
provided a new and potent stimulus. The follow- 
ing table, indicating the number of houses built in 
Tel Aviv every year since its foundation, will give 
the reader an idea of the remarkable growth of the 
CLL 


Number 

of houses 
Year. built. 
BOG fz... Ale ae me 62 
LOL OW Ay; ee ah ees 7 
LOT Eee slp he ey II 
LOLA 9 ie ne es fo 34 
topo iE ee ve ee bei 39 
Fora si hee ass pict 49 
LOWS Ge oer we: He nie O 
TOLGwE. : By ie aS aes O 
ils: Gy Asan ne 4 Mi O 
EQS Wh 22 fs ase soe O 
Lr pee St wae 40 9 
LG20nw ec: ee ep yay 28 
TO2 Tee ug a POO ule ay) 
1922 384 


In 1922, by an Ordnance issued by the Palestine 
Government, Tel Aviv was recognized as an 
autonomous township formally under the muni- 
cipality of Jaffa, and in June, 1923, the boundaries 
between Tel Aviv and Jaffa proper were definitely 
fixed, so as to include in Tel Aviv a part of the 
older Jewish quarters of Jaffa. This greater Tel 
Aviv, as constituted since June, 1923, covers an area 


176 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


about as large as that of the whole of the non- 
Jewish part of Jaffa, and comprises about 2,000 
houses with a population of 18,000 souls. 

Tel Aviv is the only town in the world whose 
administration is entirely Jewish. The Mayor and 
his Councillors, the police inspector and his men, 
down to the street-cleaners and the bootblacks, all 
are Jews. The official language of the township, 
and that mostly spoken by the people, is Hebrew. 
Tel Aviv was the first city in Palestine to instal a 
central water supply and electric lighting. Its 
Council was also the first public body to introduce 
into the country the use of concrete, in place of the 
soft native limestone metal, for the construction of 
roads. Since 1922, the Township possesses on the 
sea-shore an attractive casino and large bathing 
establishments, whither visitors flock during the 
summer from all parts of the country and even from 
Egypt. Tel Aviv was the first Palestinian city to 
participate in the carrying out of the great scheme 
for the electrification of Palestine, known as the 
Rutenberg project. Since 1922, Tel Aviv has 
found imitators in other parts of the country; near 
Jerusalem, Haifa, and ‘Tiberias, modern Jewish 
quarters are now in course of erection on similar 
lines. 


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TEL AVIV 177 





FIGURE 29 


Photographic reduction of July, 1923, map of 
Jaffa and Tel Aviv. 
Scale about I : 40,000. 


APPENDIX Il 


THE ORIGIN OF THE JAFFA ORANGE 


Whereas the cultivation of the citron (Citrus 
Medica Cedra) in Palestine appears to go back to 
the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity 
in the fifth century B.C.,° the bitter orange (Citrus 
Aurantium L.) and the lemon (Citrus Medica Risso) 
were introduced into the country during the tenth 
century A.D., by the Arabs, who had brought them 
previously from India to Oman, Basrah, Iraq and 
Syria. From Palestine these trees were taken by 
the Crusaders and the Italian and French traders to 
the Mediterranean coasts of their respective 
countries during the last years of the eleventh and 
the early twelfth century. It was then that the 
name “orange” (from the Persian zaren7, through 
the Arabic zavan7) became known in Europe; but it 
served to indicate exclusively the bitter orange, for 
the sweet fruit (C7ztvus Aurantium dulce) was as yet 
unknown to the Near East as well as to the West. 
It was the Portuguese navigators, after they had 
discovered the sea-route to India round South 
Africa in 1497, who found the sweet orange in 
Hindustan, whither they learned that it had been 


+ The citron (in Hebrew 312% N =ethrog) is used by the Jews 
for ritual purposes during the feast of Tabernacles; this feast was insti- 
tuted by Ezra. 

? A. Risso, Histoire Naturelle des Orangers, Paris, 1818, pp. 8-9; 
see also Victor Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Haustiere, Berlin, 1911, p. 453. 


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THE ORIGIN OF THE JAFFA ORANGE _ 179 


imported from China. They brought the fruit with 
them to Portugal, and from here its knowledge 
spread over Europe. In the Germanic countries 
it was called the “apple of China” (Dutch: 
sinaasappel, German: Apfelsine); but in the 
Mediterranean regions it remained known as the 
“ Portuguese fruit”: in the Provence it is called 
pourtougalié, in Italy the best oranges are recom- 
mended as being gortogalli, and the Arabs of 
Palestine and the neighbouring countries call it 
burdukan. ‘Thus it is to the traders from the West 
that Palestine is indebted for the introduction of 
the sweet orange. But this is true only so far as 
the statement applies to the small, spheric orange 
grown to-day at Saida and at Jericho. The large, 
oval, seedless “ Jaffa orange ” has another origin. 
We have seen before that during the sixteenth 
century, which was the time when the sweet orange 
was spread from Portugal over the Mediterranean 
countries, Jaffa was nothing but a collection of 
deserted ruins. The creation of the orange groves 
of Jaffa cannot, therefore, go back further than to 
the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the 
town began again to be inhabited. The picture of 
Jaffa in 1726, given by P. Angelicus Maria Myller 
(fig. 14, page 138) shows on the left a large and 
regular plantation of trees which, by their shape, 
may well be orange trees. The first authentic 
evidence which we possess of the existence of such 
trees at Jaffa is due to the Swedish naturalist 
Hasselquist, who mentions among the plants which 
he saw in 1751 “in the gardens (of Jaffa)..... 
Citrus aurantia. The orange tree.” Twenty-four 


years later, when Abu-l-Dhahab besieged Jaffa, the 


* Op. cit., pp. 276-277. 


180 THE GATEWAY. OF PALESTINE 


town was already surrounded by “a forest of 
orange and lemon trees,’’ where the oranges were 
growing “to a most prodigious size.”” The 
description of the fruit as of “ prodigious size ” 
does not fit the small variety of Saida or Jericho; it 
fits only the large, oval fruit peculiar to Jaffa and 
known by the native name of “shamouty.” The 
question as to how and whence this fruit was 
brought to Jaffa may possibly for ever remain 
unsolved. According to the version which was told 
the present writer, the “shamouty”’ orange was 
brought back from China, about two hundred years 
ago, by an Armenian priest whom the Armenian 
Patriarch had sent on a mission to Persia, India, 
and the Far East. On the whole, the story is quite 
plausible: the date mentioned corresponds with 
that of the first indication we have of the existence 
of orange groves at Jaffa, and it is also true that 
Armenians played a prominent part in the 
re-building of the town during the first half of the 
eighteenth century (see page 140). The only 
difficulty lies in accepting the statement that a 
Christian priest travelled as far as China on a 
religious mission. It is worth noting, in this 
connection, that at the beginning of the sixteenth 
century (A.D. 1519) the Emperor Baber, in his 
memoirs, mentions the orange of Khorassan and 
states that this fruit forms the object of an important 
trade between Asterabad, a town and district of 
Northern Persia, and Samarkand, a distance of 
about 1,100 miles; “ but as these have a thick peel 


* Volney, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 331. 
Redd MON Tg, 146, 
4 By Mr. Frederick Murad, of Jaffa. 


ORIGIN OF THE JAFFA ORANGE 181 


and little juice they are not apt to be much injured.” 
It is a fact that the Jaffa orange possesses quite 
extraordinary keeping qualities, and that these are 
chiefly due to its thick peel. 


iN PF ye. Tega StR-emateermn cre neta UCT A TN 

* The Memories of Zeher-ed-Din Muhammed Baber, Emperor of 
Hindostan, written by himself (A.D. 1519) in the Yaghatai Turki, and 
translated by John Leyde and William Erskine, published in 1826 (quoted 


by E. Bonavia, The Cultivated Oranges and Lemons of India and Ceylon, 
London, 1888). 


N 


STATISTICS 
POPULATION OF JAFFA, FROM 1886 To 


APPENDIX IV 


OF SHIPPING, TRADE, AND THE 


£025 


MOVEMENT OF SHIPS AT JAFFA FROM 1886 To 1922 





Ngee Sailing Vessels Steamers Total 
|Numbers|Reg.Tons Numbers| Reg. Tons |Numbers| Reg. Tons 
1886 603 21,167 397 438,177 1,000 4595344 
1887 558 20,396 403 441,306 961 461,702 
1888 560 21,467 382 439,039 942 460,506 
1889 470 175395 356 3935352 826 410,747 
1890 797 454,254 
1891 320 20,445 376 3795721 696 400,166 
1892 350 17,186 383 422,171 733 4395357 
1893 513 23,807 439 5135775 952 537582 
1894 305 17,965 451 518,994 856 536,959 
1895 342 15,934 491 587,734 833 603,668 
1896 387 17,362 411 493,973 798 511,335 
1897 274 14,003 414 500,499 688 514,502 
1898 122 21,109 431 582,962 553 604,071 
1899 
1900 434 153955 421 507,575 855 523,530 
IgOI 
1902 285 11,161 330 503,926 615 515,087 
1903 340 12,429 425 576,820 75 589,249 
1904 409 13,711 489 704,936 898 718,647 
1905 426 15,653 5435 803,325 971 818,978 
1906 522 135277 602 907,680 1,124 925,957 
1907 398 16,885 611 912,076 1,009 928,061 
1908 531 21,815 672 1,014,557 1,203 1,036,372 
1909 482 15,048 744 1,154,771 1,226 1,170,419 
1910 807 21,379 797 | 1,115,391 1,514 | 1,136,770 
19II 756 23,630 632 1,025,461 1,389 1,049,091 
1QI2 565 12,079 587 1,014,084 1,152 1,026,163 
1913 676 16,166 665 1,160,315 1,341 1,176,481 
Q14 
¥QI5 
1916 
1917 
1918 
1919/20 972 8,030 194 275,107 1,166 283,137 
1920/21 933 12,665 315 418,659 1,248 431,324 
1921 928 15,999 448 751,469 1,376 767,468 
1922 658 155304 469 833,168 1,150 948,242 





SOURCES FOR ABOVE FIGURES: 

For 1886-1900—L. F. Pinkus, Palaestina und Syrien, Geneva, 1903 (who 
mentions as his sources Verney and Dambmann, Les Puissances 
Etrangéres dans le Levant, en Syrie et en Palestine, Paris, 1900, 


and Handelsarchiv for 1901), p. 80. 


182 





SDALIS TICS 183 


For 1902-1913—Ben Gorion and Ben Zevi, Erez Israel, New York, p. 
214. 

For 1919/20 and 1920/21—The Economic Situation of Palestine, Report 
submitted to H.E. the High Commissioner by Mr. R. A. Harari, 
Director of the Department of Commerce and Industry; pub- 
lished in the Bulletin of the Palestine Economic Society, August, 
1g2t. 

For 1921—Commercial Bulletin, 1922, published by the Department of 
Commerce and Industry, Palestine Government. 

For 1922—Information obtained personally from the Department of 
Commerce and Industry, Palestine Government. 


TRADE OF JAFFA FROM 1886 to 1922 





Year Imports. Exports. Total 
LE. LE LE. 

1886 240,880 119,555 360,435 
1887 232,045 186,371 418,416 
1888 253,005 204,315 457,380 
1889 275,622 244,561 520,183 
1890 259,811 447,010 706,821 
1891 287,700 400,530 688,230 
1892 342,597 258,466 601,063 
1893 349,540 332,628 682,168 
1894 273,233 285,604 558,837 
1895 275,990 282,906 558,896 
1896 256,060 3739447 629,507 
1897 306,630 309,389 616,019 
1898 322,430 306,780 629,210 
1899 390,260 316,158 706,418 
1900 382,405 264,950 6475355 
1901 426,310 277,635 7033945 
1902 405,550 203,390 608,940 
1903 4395775 3225335 762,110 
1904 4735320 295,300 768,620 
1905 460,000 370,000 830,000 
1906 660,000 500,000 1,160,000 
1907 809,000 484,340 1,203,340 
1908 803,400 556,370 153595770 
1909 9735143 560,935 1,534,078 
1910 1,002,450 636,145 1,638,595 
IQII 1,169,910 716,660 1,886,570 
1912 1,090,019 774,162 1,864,181 
1913 1,312,905 745413 2,058,378 
1914 
1915 
1916 
1917 
1918 

1919/20 1,408,238 169,308 155779546 

1920/21 2,140,817 327,479 2,468,296 


1922 2,252,314 4931300 2,745,614 


184 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


SOURCES FOR ABOVE FIGURES: 


For 1886-1904—D. Trietsch, Palastina-Handbuch, 1910, p. 173. 

For 1905-1911—British Consular Reports, quoted by C. Nawratzki, Das 
neue jtidische Paldstina, Berlin, 1919, p. 182. 

For 1912-1913—Ben Gorion and Ben Zevi, Erez Israel, p. 202. 

For 1919-1922—-The Department of Commerce and Industry, Palestine 
Government. 


EXPORT OF JAFFA ORANGES FROM 1885 to 1923 





Year Number of Boxes Value 
1885 106,000 Z 26,500 
1890 200,000 yi eee hee 
1891 ? 93 106,500 
1892 "4 be 61,000 
1893 316,000 5, 80,200 
1894 465,000 »» 96,700 
1895 260,000 AS 65,000 
1896 ? jt 95,000 
1897 ? Kis g0,100 
1898 435,000 Ein Ye Tere 
1899 ? nf 99,000 
1900 251,071 99 745215 
1901 ? ? 
1902 ? ? 
1903 448,000 HE. 92,300 
1904 468,000 », 100,000 
1905 456,000 PVN & b Ft 
1906 548,000 ae oe are 0) 
1907 631,000 390k Pat OOe 
1908 676,000 si SOL LS Oe 
1909 744,000 ALTOS OLS 
1910 854,000 £010) 2950008 
IQII 870,000 15 2d F500 
1912 1,418,000 33 283,600 
1913 1,609,000 3) 207.700 
1914 
1915 
1916 
1917 
1918 
1919/20 647,063 5, 162,409 
1920/21 830,959 93 200,475 
1921/22 1,122,000 x» 380,500 
1922/23 1,394,912 »» 358,636 





SOURCES FOR ABOVE FIGURES: 


For 1885, 1890, 1895, and 1900—Ben Gorion and Ben Zevi, Erez Israel, 
p- 398 (who mention British Consular reports as their sources). 

For 1891-1894 and 1896-1899—A. Aaronsohn and S,. Soskin, Die Oran- 
gengdrten von Jaffa, in Der Tropenpflanzer 1902, No. 75 Peigae 
(sources of doubtful value). 


STATISTICS 185 


For 1903-1908—Information supplied by the Anglo-Palestine Bank, quoted 
by C. Nawratzki, Die jiidische Kolonisation Paldstinas, Miinich, 
1914, p. 428. 

For 1909-1921—Commercial Bulletin of March 21st, 1922. 

For 1921/22—Information obtained directly from the Customs authorities 
at Jaffa. 

For 1922/23—Commercial Bulletin of June 7th, 1923. 


THE POPULATION OF JAFFA 


Number of 
br inhabitants. 
1886 17,000 
1892 23,000 
1897 35,000 
1900 40,000 
1906 47,000 
1908 50,000 
1922 47,779 (includes 


the population of Tel Aviv) 


SOURCES FOR ABOVE FIGURES: 


For 1885, 1892, and 1897—L. F. Pinkus, Paldstina und Syrien, Geneva, 
1903, p. 8o. 

For 1900—Id., p. 51. 

For 1g06 and 1908—D. Trietsch, Palastina-Handbuch, 1910, p. 42. 

For 1922—Information obtained directly from the District Governorate 
at Jaffa, on the basis of the 1922 Census. 


186 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


BOOKS AND ARTICLES QUOTED 


A. Aaronsohn and S. Soskin, Die Orangengdrten von Jaffa, in Der 
Tropenpflanzer, 1902, No. 7. 

F. M. Abel, Le Littoral Palestinien et ses Ports, in Revue Biblique, 1914. 

d’Anglure, Le Saint- Voyage de Jérusalem, par le baron d’Anglure, 1395, 
Paris, 1858. 

Anquetil, Histoire de France d’Anquetil, continuée, depuis la Révolution 
de 1789 jusqu’ a celle de 1830, par Léonard Gallois, Paris. 

Antoninus Martyr, Of the Holy Places visited by Antoninus Martyr, 
P.P.T.S., 1896. 


Baber, The Memoirs of Zeher-ed-Din Muhammed Baber, Emperor of 
Hindostan. Translated by John Leyde and William Erskine, 
London, 1826. 

Wilhelm Albert Bachiene, Historische und Geographische Beschreibung 
von Paldstina nach seinem ehemaligen und jetzigen Zustande. 
Aus. dem Holldndischen tibersetzt . . . von Gottfried Maas, 
Cleve and Leipzig, 1773. 

Beha ed-Din, The Life of Saladin, P.P.T.S., London, 1897. 

Ben Gorion and Ben Zevi, Erez Israel, New York, 1917. 

Benjamin of Tudela, The Travels of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, A.D. 
1160-1173, in Early Travels in Palestine, edited by Thomas 
Wright, London, 1848. 

Bertrandon de la Brocquiére, The Travels of Bertrandon de la Brocquiére, 
A.D. 1432, 1433, in Early Travels in Palestine, London, 1848. 

W. Besant and E. H. Palmer, Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin, 
London, 1908. 

The Bible. 

de Bourienne, Mémoires de M. de Bourienne. 

J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Historical Documents, 
Chicago, 1906. 

Louis Bréhier, L’Eglise et l’ Orient au Moyen Age, Les Croisades, 2éme 
édition, Paris, 1907. 

Breitenbach, Die Paldstinakarte Bernhard von Breitenbach’s, von Rein- 
hold Roehricht, in Z.D.P.V., 1901. 

Brenner, Die Jerusalemfahrt des Kanonikus Ulrich Brenner vom Haugstift 
in Wurzburg (1470), herausgegeben von Reinhold Roehricht, 
in Z.D.P.V., 1906. 

Le Brun, Voyage au Levant, c’est-a-dire Dans les Principaux endroits 
de l’Asie Mineure, Dens les Isles de Chio, de Rhodes, de Chypre, 
etc., De méme que. Dans les plus considérables Villes d’Egypte, 
de Syrie, Et de la Terre Sainte . . . Par Corneille Le Brun, 
Traduit du Flamand, Amsterdam, 1714, 2 volumes. 

James Silk Buckingham, Travels in Palestine, Second Edition, London, 
1822. 


E. Carmoly, Itinéraires de la Terre Sainte, Bruxelles, 1847. 

de Caumont, Voyage d’Oultremer en Jherusalem, par le Seigneur de 
Caumont V’an MCCCCXVIII, publié pour la premiére fois d’aprés 
le manuscrit du Musée-Britannique par le Marquis de la Grange, 
Paris, 1858. 


BOOKS AND ARTICLES 187 


Chateaubriand, Itinéraire de Paris a Jérusalem, Nouvelle édition, Garnier, 
Paris. 

Izhak Chelo, po osyq7 553g u. Les Chemins de Jérusalem (1334). 
Translated from the Hebrew into French by E. Carmoly in his 
Itinéraires de la Terre Sainte, Brussels, 1847. 

Ch. Clermont-Ganneau, Archeological Researches in Palestine during the 
years 1873-1874, London, 1896. 

Ch. Clermont-Ganneau, Letters, in P.E.F.Q.S. 

Commercial Bulletin, published by the Department of Commerce and 
Industry, Palestine Government. 

C. R. Conder, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, London. 

C. R. Conder, The Prayer of Ben Abdas on the Dedication of the Temple 
of Joppa, in P.E.F.Q.S., 1892. 

C. R. Conder, Syrian Stone Lore, London, 1896. 

Crooke, A Relation of a Journey begun A.D. 1610. Foure bookes. Con- 
taining a description of the Turkish Empire, of Aegypt, of the 
Holy Land, of the Remote Parts of Italy and Ilands adioyning. 
The fourth edition. London. Printed for Andrew Crooke, 1637. 


Abbot Daniel, The Pilgrimage of the Russian Abbot Daniel in the Holy 
Land (A.D. 1106-1107), P.P.T.S., London, 1895. 

O. Dapper, Naukeurige Beschrijving van gansch Syrie, en Palestyn of 
Heilige Lant, etc. . . . Amsterdam, 1677. 

Darricarriére, Sur une Monnaie inédite de \Joppé, in Revue Archéologique 
Nouvelle Série, t. XLIII, 1882. 

J. Delaville Le Roulx, La France en Orient au XIVéme Siécle, Paris, 
1885. 

Richard Devizes, Chronicle of Richard of Devizes, concerning the Deeds 
of King Richard the First, King of England, in Bohn’s Chronicles 
of the Crusades, London, 1914. 

Ernst Diez, Die Kunst der Islamischen Volker, Berlin, 1915. 

Archdeacon Dowling, The Episcopal Succession in Jerusalem from 
Pa. oog0;iner. EF .O.S.,! 19. 

S. R. Driver, Modern Research as illustrating the Bible, London, 1909. 

René Dussaud, Musée du Louvre.... Les Monuments Palestiniens et 
Judaiques, Paris, 1912. 


Louis Enault, La Terre Sainte, Voyage des Quarante Pélerins de 1853, 
Paris, 1854. 

Encyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition. 

Eusebius’ Onomastikon der Biblischen Ortsnamen. WHerausgegeben von 
Erich Klostermann, Leipsiz, 1904. 


Felix Fabri, The Book of the Wanderings of Brother Felix Fabri (c. A.D. 
1480-1483), P.P.T.S., London, 1893. 

Christoph Fuerers von Haimendorff, Reis-Reschreibung in Egypten, 
Arabien, Palaestinam, Syrien, etc., Nuernberg, 1646. 

Fulcheri Carnotensis, Historia Hyerosolymitana (1095-1127). Mit 
Erlaéuterungen und einem Anhange herausg, von Heinrich 
Hagenmeyer, Heidelberg, 1913. 

Thomas Fuller, The Historie of the Holy War, Cambridge 1639. 


Cunningham Geikie, The Holy Land and the Bible, 1887. 
Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, 1905. 


188 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


Graetz, Volkstiimliche Geschichte der Juden, 1888. 
H. V. Guérin, La Judée. 


H. R. Hall, The Ancient History of the Near East, 4th Edition, London, 


1919. 

P. S. Handcock, The Latest Light on Bible Lands, London, 1913. 

Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity. 

R. Hartmann, Paldstina unter den Arabern 632-1516, Leipzig, 1915. 

Frederick Hasselquist, Voyage and Travels in the Levant in the Years 
1749, 1750, 51, 52, London, 1756. 

Victor Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Haustiere, Berlin, 1911. 

Henry the Pious, Die Jerusalemfahrt des Herzogs Heinrich des Frommen 
von Sachsen (1498), von Reinhold Rohricht, in Z.D.P.V., 1go1. 

Wilhelm Heyd, Geschichte des Levantehandels im Mittelalter, Stuttgart, 


1879. 

George Beanie Hill, Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Palestine (in the 
British Museum), London, 1914. 

Gustav Holscher, Paldstina in der persischen und hellenistischen Zeit, 
Berlin, 1903. 

Cl. Huart, Geschichte der Araber, Leipzig, 1915. 


Irby and Mangles, Travels in Egypt and Nubia, Syria and Asia Minor, 
during the years 1817 and 1818, by the Hon. Leonard Irby and 
James Mangles, Commanders in the Royal Navy, London, 1823. 


Dominique Jauna, Histoire Générale des Roiaumes de Chypre, de 
Jérusalem, d’Arménie, et d’Egypte, Leide, 1747. 


Paul Karge, Rephaim. Die vorgeschichtliche Kultur Paldstinas und 
Phéniziens, Paderborn, 1918. 

Charles Foster Kent, Biblical Geography and History, London, 1911. 

Kingsley’s Heroes. 

Samuel Klein, Jiidisch-paldstinisches Corpus Inscriptionum, Vienna, 1920. 

Jonas Korten, Reise nach dem weiland Gelobten nun aber seit siebenzehn 
hundert Jahren unter dem Fluche liegenden Lande, Halle, 1743. 

Kootwyck, Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum et Syriacum, Auctore Joanne 
Cotovico, Antwerp, 1619. 


Stanley Lane-Poole, A History of Egypt in the Middle Ages, Second 
Edition, London, 1914. 

Lavisse et Ramboud, Histoire générale du IVéme Siécle a nos Jours. 
Paris, 1894. 

Leandro di S. Cecilia, Palestina Ovvero Primo Viaggio di F. Leandro di 
Santa Cecilia Carmelitano Scalzo, Rome, 1753. 

Guy Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, London, 1890. 

W. F. Lynch, Narrative of the United States Expedition to the River 
Jordan and the Dead Sea, London, 1840. 

R. A. Stewart Macalister, The Excavation of Gezer, London, 1912. 


R. A. Stewart Macalister, The Philistines, Their History and Civilisation, 
London, 1914. 

The Books of the Maccabees. 

Frederick M. Madden, History of the Jewish Coinage and the Money in 
the Old and New Testament, London, 1864. 


BOOKS AND ARTICLES 189 


Malus, L’Agenda de Malus. Souvenirs de l’Expédition d’Egypte, 1798- 
1801. Publié et annoté par le Général Thoumas, Paris, 1892. 

J. Mann, The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Fatimid Caliphs. 
Oxford University Press, 1920. 

Marino Sanuto, Secreta Fidelium Crucis. 

Gaston Maspéro, The Struggle of the Nations, London, 1gro. 

Gaston Maspéro, Etudes Egyptologiques. 

Gaston Maspéro, Les Contes Populaires del Egypte Ancienne, Paris, 1889. 

Paul Masson, Histoire du Commerce Frangats dans le Levant au 17ézrre 
Siécle, Paris, 1897. 

Pomponius Mela, De situ orbis libri III. 


Meshullam of Volterra, abo omg YaDa pow > yon ans 
yeas monn onswy. Relation of the Journey of Rabbi 
Meshullam ben Menahem of Volterra in the year 5245 
(A.D. 1481). Published for the first time by Luncz in Jerusalem I. 

Michaud, Histoire des Croisades. 

The Mishnah. 

Montefiore, Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, edited by Dr. 
Loewe, London, 1890. 

Ferdinand Miihlau, Martinius Seusenius’ Reise in das Heilige Land, 
1608/'3,.in)Z.D.P.V., 1003; 

Mukaddasi, Description of the Province of Syria, including Paiestine, by 
Mukaddasi, c. A.D. 985, P.P.T.S., 1896. 

W. Max Miiller, Die Paléstinaliste Thutmosis III, in de ale MA der 
V orderasiatischen Gesellschaft, 1907. 

S. Munk, Palestine, Description géographique, historique et WruBeoloeiaie: 
Paris, 1881. 

isd _Angelicus Maria Myller, Peregrinus in Jerusalem, Fremdling in 
Jerusalem, etc., Prague, 1729. 


Nasir-i-Khusrau’s Diary of a Journey through Syria and Palestine in 
A.D. 1047, P.P.T.S., London, 1893. 

C. Nawratzki, Die jiidische Koilonisation Paldstinas, Miinich, 1914. 

C. Nawratzki, Das neue jiidische Paldstina, Berlin, 1919. 

Carsten Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung. 

B. Niese, Geschichte der Griechischen und Makedonischen Staaten, 
Gotha, 1893. 


L. F. Pinkus, Palaestina und Syrien, Geneva, 1903. 

Pliny, Historia naturalis. 

Richard Pococke, Description of the East and some other Countries, 
London, 1743. 

John Poloner’s Description of the Holy Land (c. A.D. 1421), P.P.T.S., 
London, 1894. 

Eugéne Poujade, Le Liban et la Syrie 1845-1860, 3éme édition, Paris, 1867. 

H. Prutz, Kulturgeschichte der Kreuzstige, Berlin, 1883. 


Quintus Curtius Rufus, De Rebus gestis Alexandri Magni. 

Dr. Leonhart Rauwolff’s Itinerary into the Eastern Countries, etc., trans- 
lated from the Dutch by Nicholas Staphorst, in John Ray’s 
Collection of Curious Travels and Voyages, London, 1693. 

George Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient World, 
London, 1867. 


190 THE GATEWAY OF PALESTINE 


Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani MXCVII-MCCXCI., edidit Reinhold 
Roehricht, Oeniponti, 1893. 

Hadrianus Relandi Palaestina ex veteribus monumentis illustrata, 
Utrecht, 1714. 

M. Rey, Les Familles d’Outremer: Les Comtes de Jaffa et d’Ascalon, 
Paris, 1869. 

M. Rey, Les Colonies Franques de Syrie aux XIIéme et XIIIéme Siécles, 
Paris, 1883. 

Otto Friedrich von Richter, Wallfahrten in Morgenlande, Berlin, 1822. 

James Stevenson Riggs, A History of the Jewish People during the 
Maccabean and Roman Periods, London, 1913. 

A. Risso, Histoire Naturelle des Orangers, Paris, 1818. 

Carl Ritter, Vergleichende Erdkunde der Sinai-Halbinsel, von Paldstina 
und Syrien. Dritter Band, Erste Abteilung: Juddéa, Samana, 
Galiléa, Berlin, 1852. 

Robert, The Historie of the first Expedition to Jerusalem, by Godfrey of 
Bullen, Robert of Normandie, and other Christian Princes: 
written by Robert, whome some call the Englishman, a Monke 
of Saint Remigius..... in Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas 
His Pilgrimes, by Samuel Purchas, Glasgow, 1905; VolVil. 

Eugéne Roger, La Terre Sainte (1644). 

Rohricht, Studien zur mittelalterlichen Geographie iad Topographie 
Syriens, NL LP Vs loe: 


Saewulf, The Pilgrimage of Saewulf to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 
1102 and 1103 A.D., P.P.T.S., London, 1896. 

F. de Saulcy, Numismatique de la Terre Sainte, Paris, 1874. 

A. H. Sayce, Patriarchal Palestine, London, 1895. 

Adolf Schaube, Handelsgeschichte der Romanischen Volker des Mittel- 
meergebiets bis zum Ende der Kreuzztige, Berlin, 1906. 

A. Schlatter, Zur Topographie und Geschichte Paléstinas, 1893. 

E. Schiirer, Geschichte des Jtidischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, 
Leipzig, 1901. 

Rabbi Joseph Schwarz, Das heilige Land, Francfort, 1852. 

Martinus Seusenius’ Reise in das Heilige Land, 1602/3, by Ferdinand 
Mihlau, Z.D.P.V., 1903. 

H. Sidebotham, England and Palestine, London, 1918. 

Thomas Skinner, Adventures during a Journey overland to India by way 
of Egypt, Syria, and the Holy Land, London, 1836 and 1838. 
German translation by V. Jacobi, Leipzig, 1837. 

Ludolph van Suchem’s Description of the Holy Land (1350), P.P.T.S., 
London. 

Bernardinus Surius, Of te Jerusalemsche Reyse, door den E, P. Ber-. 
nardinus Surius, Antwerp, about 1680. 

The Survey of Western Palestine. _Memoirs, London, The Palestine 
Exploration Fund. 


The Jerusalem Talmud. Yoma. 

Thévenot, Relation d’un voyage fait au Levant, par M. de Thévenot, 
Paris, 1665. 

Thiers, Histoire de la Révolution Frangaise. 

Thomson, The Land and the Book, London, 1893. 

Tosefta. Yoma., 

Davis Trietsch, Palastina-Handbuch, 1910. 

William of Tyre, Belli Sacri historia. 


BOOKS AND ARTICLES 191 


F. Vigouroux, Dictionnaire de la Bible, 1899. 

Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s Chronicle of Richard the First’s Crusade, in Bohn’s 
Chronicles of the Crusades, London, 1914. 

Jacques de Vitry, The History of Jerusalem, P.P.T.S., London, 1896. 

C. F. Volney, Travels through Syria and Egypt in the years 1783, 1784, 
and 1785, 2 volumes, London, 1787. 


Sir C. M. Watson, Bonaparte’s Expedition to Palestine in 1799, in 
PVE. O.Sia 1007s 

Saint Willibald, The Hodoeporicon of Saint Willibald (c. A.D. 754), 
P.P.T.S., London, 1895. 

William Rae Wilson, Travels in Egypt and the Holy Land, London, 1824. 

Hugo Winckler, The Tel-el-Amarna Letters, 1896. 


Yakuby, Geography, Leyde, 1861. 





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INDEX 


A 

PAGE 

Abu-I-Dhahab... . 142-147 
Abulfeda : 126 
Abu-Marra ... eos, 153-154 
Abu-Mohammed - 78 
Abu-Nabbat vee) 154-155 
el-Adel ..._... 102-108, 114-116 
Aegean culture ies) 40730 
Agiman (Isaiah) .. 156, 160 
’Ajami quarter i 162 
Alberic of Rheims... . 107-109 
Alexander Balas 50-52 
K the Great ... 44, 45 

#, Jannaeus 55) 50 

Ali Bey - 141-144 
Amalfitans 82 
Amaury : 98-99 
American colony 161 
el-Amir (khalif) 95 
Amr-ibn-el-As Fates 76 
Andromeda hae 58, 59, rh Goer g3 
Anglure (Baron d’ 129 
Antiochus Hy; the Great 47 
ot IV, Epiphanes 47-48 

O VI, Sidetes ... 53-54 

Me IX, Kyzikenos 54 

Pi SOE are 55 
Antipater rapeetsen Maes 57 
Antoninus Martyr 75 
Apollonius Daos 50-51 
Archelaus 63 
Atsiz 82 
Augustus 63 

B 

Baldwin I 87-95 
eae WH 98-99 

a IV 99-100 

7 NG soa, ood 100 
Barlais (Renaud) ... 115 





193 


PAGE 
OassatnY ala sissy) a0 4set 120 ESO 
Bazaar vetoes seh eel k 45 kOA 
Ben vAbdas i ieeintel jake UU Q0-a2 
Benjamin of Tudela ... 99 
Berengaria (Queen of 
England) 105 
Bernhard von Breytenbach 132 
Bertone di Rescoro ... 125 
Bertrandon de la pian 130 
Pibareugss AV tee eb CoA 
Bishopric of Jaffa 273) 74300 
Bonaparte ; aos 149-153 
Bouillon (Godfrey of) . 85-88 
Breytenbach (Bernhard 
von) ae 132 
Brienne (Walter of) .. 116-118 
British Occupation... 165-166 
Cc 
Caesar) ([iiius) tien eee | 5 0y.00 
Cambyses PR as rt 38 
Danaanites. Vesey ws ces 6-10 
Carmathians 78 
Cassiopeia (worship. of)... 28, 29 


Champagne (Henry of)... 110, 114 
Church of St. Peter 


76, 93, 94, 124, 129 
Cleopatra (Queen of 


Egypt) us ak.) WO Tag Oar 
Coins 45) 47) 55, 88 70, 71 
Contarini (Enrico)... 87 

v dallo Zafio sa 122 
Convent(Franciscan) 120, 135, 139 
», (Armenian) Leh EO ty 


County of Jaffa 
SG. F714, 149, 322,323 
re see & Ascalon 98, 119 


Crooke (Andrew) ... ... 135 
Crusades... .... 82- 125) 127-129 
St. Cyril of Alexandria.. 74 
Cyrus sie SPR MPS Oe fe ce # 


194 INDEX 


D 
PAGE 
Dagobert bdr dew hwten 86 
Dan (Tribe of) sense ane 23 
Daniel (Abbot) ... ... 93 
Demetrios II, Nicator ... 50 
Derketo (Sacred pond ay 26-27 
Dubois!) (Pierre) 0.7) oN. 127 
E 
Earthquakes ... 80, 81, 159 
Electricity see We Sohne ts 167 
Embriaci 85 
Eshmun (Temple of) . 39-42 
Eshmunazar 
Shel 2 er cian of) 39 
Eusebius ... oa 3 
Eustochium (Holy) es 73 


F 


Fountains of Abu-Nabbiat 154-155 
Frederick II... . . 116-117 
Pulke (King) 22.0 55.6) 0s.)5 07-98 


G 


Gallus (Cestius) ... ... 66-68 
Gardens of ‘Jaffa 
20-22, 64, 105-106, 120, 139-140 
144, 15y-160, 168, 178-181 
Garnier (Count Eustace) 95-96 


Genoese ... ...82, 85-86, 89, 124 
German Colony ... ... 161 
Greeks: ot Jaffant 0.0 :.erand4 ih 
H 
Harbour 2,52; 444,107 
PAASSAN pO Aa iy aoe 164 
Hassan-ibn-Ahmer... ... 78 
PLasselquist) jie, ae nde 140 
Hayton samateane 127 
Hebrews : te Fog. 41,32 
Hellenistic influences vin wh, OS 
Henry VI Vie able teh Samed Sik 
Henry the Pious of Saxony 132 
Herod the Great ... .... 60-63 
Hiram = 31 


Hugh (Count ‘of Jaffa) 97-98 


I 
PAGE 
Ibrahim Pasha . 156-158 
Industries osx (9G, (02551330 
Ingulf sip ae 82 
Inscriptions :— 
Sarcophagus of 
Eshmunazar_... 39 


Temple of Eshmun ... 39-42 
Fredericks sPD@ wivse pc 117 


Necropolis 72, 168-173 
Jsaac Chelo ese haven pee 127 
J 
el-Jezzar Nes 140. 16 tees 
aie ed-Din ibn- Isheik. 127 

Jerome 


sone pases 73 
i eich Fleet \..0))3-> igen Oberg 
Jews of Jaffa 
38, 49, 52-55, 61, 63, 65, 67-71 
99, 125, 155-156, 159-160, 163 
167, 174-177 
John Hyreanusi>\ <5) 2.0 gees 
John of Ibelin Sut van ER AaE 


Jono Potoner iy ke.v eer. 130 
Joinville os se BI SeBIO 
Jonah ay bs 2 
Jonathan Maccabaeus oaeit LOSES 
Joppe  Plavia yc ere 71 
Judas Maccabaeus os | 4850 
K 
Kepheus (worship id. 66 
Kharezmians ... ; . II7-119 
Khumaraweyh ... ... a 
Kootwijck , 134 
kubbet Sheikh “Murad .. 127 
L 


Latin hospice 
65, 135-136, 138-139 


Lebrun . 137-138 
Legends : 
Jonah 27 


Perseus & Andromeda 27-29 
Nicanor’s Temple gates 
27, 62-63 
St. George and the 
Dragon P <a af 


INDEX 195 


PAGE 
Louis IX Fr se» I1Q-120 
Ludolph von Suchem pereiaes 120 


Lusignan (Geoffrey de)... 104. 114 
», (Guy de) 100-101, 103, 114 


M 
Malus eres eine A Seek Glick 53 
Marc Antony . Mes We VRE 6 a a9. 
Marino Sanuto ben 129 
Marseille cites of) 98 
Menshieh quarter... ... 163 
Michael (Giovanni) - <# 87 
i (Domenico) ... 95 
Millicent (Queen)... ... 97 
Mohammed Ali tee 158 
Mohar (Travels of a) . 21-22 
Monconys : ai 136 
Montefiore (Sir Moses)... 161 
Montferrat (William of) 99 
Mosques Baer etek 154, 164 
el-Mukaddasi pee ken ates 79 

N 
Name of Jaffa mis FBe 440 76 


Names (Jewish, from the 


MEELODOLIS) neh tyes Pites 171 
en-Nasir (Sultan) ... ... 128 
Necropolis F .-- 168-173 
Neolithic Settlement ... 4, 6 
Neveh-Shalom aE e 163 
Neveh-Zedek Fenty es 163 


Nicanor’s Temple Gates 27, 62-63 
Niebuhr .. . 140-141 


Oo 


Oranges 140, 144, 159, 
161, 165, 167, 169, 178-181 
Osman Pasha ah persis ir tA2 


P 
Pactum Warmundi vex 96 
Papyrus Anastasil ... 21 
2 FASSTIG? Wists piscen 4g T4775 
Paula (Holy) . ie 73 


Perseus and Andromeda 
27-29, 58, 71 


PAGE 
Peter I (King of eel aden 130 
Peter, the as Loess ite 63-65 
Philip NV canes eae 128 
Philistines eAyhig Seb ents) SaaS 
Phoenicians CATO er. 
20, 25, 26, 29, 38-42 
Pilgrims Oly poss: OF; 
113, 124, 129-131, 134, 140 
Pisans 82, 86-88, 98, 
102-103, 105, 125 


Pompey ... APeSeT ES PRR Wy Con 
Pope John XXII Pa ot Bee 128 
Population (growth of)... . 185 
Prayer of Ben Abdas ... 39-42’ 
PIUOLEMY! GR TOE, 2 tracie atcatigh 7 Geely 

a Deen e wteyeay star Oe 

Wr Le ees 46-47 


AS Philometor.. 51-52 


R 


Rabbir Agha Were tet ts 72 
oo) MOA ita fz 
», Judah ben Tona- 

than ha-Kohen 169-170 
», Judah ben 


Tarphon a2 

»» Nachman bats 72 

Be CE ICH aS Sm we cna oe 72 
Tanchum es 72 
Railway ; ; 162,0167 
Rameses II... a 20 
Ransoming of Captives... 79-80 


Rauwolff (Leonard) ... 143 
Raymund of Tripoli... 100, 1o1 
Richard Coeur-de-Lion 

103-107, I10—-114 
Rock-tombs . 169-173 
Rodger of Rozay ; 86 
Roman Senate (Decrees) 65,°59 


S 
Saewulf : 1. 90-92 
Saknet Abu Kebir “127, 159, 169 
»,  ed-Darwish ro 159 
spin ROME Aen as 159 
Daa atau xe 159 
Saladin F 7o Lutseek OOSE 13 
Scaurus, M. . at «sass SO-50 
Sebil. Abu- Nabbat — k55) 2OG 
pelfolss "20s Lal ey ee: 


196 INDEX 


PAGE 

MENNACKETIE Veer ieee leeth VaR a30 8 
Petiok Gaal nee 20 

Sheikh Abu- Kebir 

at oH 64 
Shipping vas wy 182 
Sidon as haa uns Geta 
Siegfried of Mayence Heh 82 
Sigurd iiiys Se 94 
Silk eer itt 160 
Simon Maccabaeus.. -.50, 52-54 
,, the Tanner “oh 65 


Simon the Tanner’s house 


LOS Zeon eae 
Smith (Sir Sidney) |» ..; 152 


Solomon: (Ring) yell. O- 92 
Strategic importance of 
Jafia). Re SPM NEOR DS or Sct 
Suleiman Pasha ... ... 154 
Sybil (Queen)... 99-100, 114 
T 
Tabitha OG ONS wl Ca eta 
Tabitha’s house own ih bat vie) 
” tomb 64) 74-75, 70 
Talmudic teachers from 
Jaffa. «+. 72, 169-170 
et-Tawahin (“The Mills”) 77 
Tel-Amarna letters .... 16-19 
Tel-Aviv $e bee LORS L7AHd 77, 
Tel-er-Ras (‘‘ Hill of the 
Skulls ob 147 


PAGE 
Tempelgemeinde ... ... 161 
Thutmosis III evel lacaie | Miaetie 


FENUtyE! 02007" Leak Odes i pest ae tad 
Tituli wig Ml lgeel Mente gcd Ocer kaon 
Borer CHR NL Ct amt PPIMR OTA VE Le a!ch de 
Trade rit OMe ear FN | 
79, 83, 98, 99, 124-127, 
130, 133" 139) 141, 183-184 


Tryphon — ss bee) Sane 
Y 

Venetians .87-88, 95 97: 122 

Vespasian ; 67-71 

Virgilius, the Priest... 74-75 

NV OLYABEP ENE idan.) Obie pase 147 
W 


Walter of Brienne ... 116-118 
William of Montferrat.. 99-100 


Mg 
PY SMEAR: ice k yh eon patel ine 77 


Z 


Zahir ibn-Omar . 141-148 
Zionists ects Meee 163 
Zvallaert (Jean) ees 134 


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GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. 


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